Zuiderzee harbours in focus / Collection Zuiderzeemuseum

The ports around the Zuiderzee owe their growth to the trade with other towns and cities in the Netherlands and abroad. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Baltic Sea trade brought prosperity to Amsterdam and other towns in Holland and Friesland. In the early seventeenth century, the Hollandic towns in particular, united in the Dutch East India Company, began to engage in trade with countries in Asia.

Other towns also developed other commercial activities, such as the Frisian towns of Workum and Makkum which produce ceramics right down to the present-day. Smaller towns and villages without specific trading occupations developed fishing activities on the Zuiderzee and the North Sea. The former Zuiderzee island of Urk is an excellent example of this.

The prosperity of the towns around the Zuiderzee is clearly demonstrated by the expansion of the harbours. New harbours were regularly constructed. But the accretion of sand formed a threat to navigation. Much money had to be spent on keeping the harbours deep enough for the ships.

The harbour towns around the former Zuiderzee are depicted in two rooms. The maps, prints, drawings and several characteristic objects all belong to the collection of the Zuiderzee Museum. They have been ordered according to Zuiderzee region: Friesland, Overijssel, Gelderland, Utrecht and Noord-Holland.