Hogeland
The Hogeland , also written Hoogeland , is a coastal area in the north of the province of Groningen in the Netherlands . The area also became a political entity on January 1, 2019. The large municipality of Het Hogeland includes the municipalities of De Marne with Bedum , Winsum and Eemsmond .
It is a clay-rich area, which is characterized by characteristic terp villages and large arable regions. The name Hogeland (German highland ) refers to the slightly elevated position of the strip of land compared to the surrounding areas.
Location and origin
The core of the Hogeland is formed by a former peninsula, which has grown over the centuries through scorching and the silting up of the mouths of the Hunze rivers and the no longer existing Fivel . Large areas along the coast were also polded . The Hogeland is predominantly an agricultural area with fertile, sandy loam soil , winding roads and winding watercourses, some of which are called "maars" in the dialect of Gronings . From the middle to the south, a low-lying and open grassland with heavy clay soils and widely spread settlement extends to the Centrale Woldstreek , an area bordering the city of Groningen in the northeast . This region, which is deeper than the Hogeland, is generally no longer counted as part of it and instead goes under the name Lageland or Centrale Woldgebied .
The not diked salt marshes and mud flats are part of the salt water tidal landscape of the Wadden Sea. They form a nature reserve and have been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Wadden Sea since 2009 .
The Hogeland extends over the area of the municipality of Eemsmond and in parts of the municipalities of Bedum , De Marne , Loppersum and Winsum . Some well-known places here are Warfhuizen , Kloosterburen , Pieterburen , Leens , Ulrum , Baflo , Oudeschip , Spijk (zu Delfzijl ), Zeerijp, Uithuizen , Uithuizermeeden and Warffum and the villages Eenrum, Mensingeweer, Westernieland and Wehe-den Hoorn. Many villages were laid out over the centuries along the old medieval dike and are now connected by the N363 (Winsum - Spijk), which clearly illustrates the course of the old dike and early settlement areas.
economy
Today the Hogeland is primarily agricultural. In the past, peat was also extracted or bricks were produced.
The heavy clay along the Winsumerdiep and Delthe rivers was particularly suitable for brick making. While the coarser sediment particles and sands of the sea were deposited on the salt marshes by the tides and floods and formed the higher land there, the finer components of the clay sediments were carried into the deeper hinterland. The high iron content of the soil, due to the influx of water from the peat area Woldstreken , provided the typical red color. The peat from the nearby moor served as the energy supplier for burning the bricks. The first stones were baked and used for the construction of churches and stone houses (castles) in field fire ovens. From the sixteenth century onwards, industrial brickworks emerged. The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were the golden age for the Groningen brick industry. Large quantities of clay were extracted and made into bricks, tiles and drain pipes. However, in the course of the 20th century, despite the introduction of new technologies, it was no longer possible to remain competitive with foreign suppliers and brick production in the province of Groningen came to a standstill. Some remains of these brickworks can still be found along the Winsumerdiep and Rottum.
In the Hogeland there was a historically grown class division between large landowners and small farmers or farm workers into the 20th century . In the 19th and 20th centuries, strikes and armed conflicts occasionally occurred in this area of social tension . For this reason, departments of the Koninklijke Marechaussee (Dutch form of the Gendarmerie ) were stationed at various locations in the north of the province of Groningen .
The Hogeland in art
The internationally acclaimed feature film De Poolse Bruid ( The Polish Bride ) was a. a. Taken north of the village of Ulrum and, in addition to the plot about a Polish prostitute who sought refuge from a farmer in the Hogeland after persecution, is also intended to be a cinematic commitment to this region.
In this film, as well as in his appearances and recordings, the dialect singer Ede Staal (1941–1986), who was born in Warffum and is known far beyond the province of Groningen , sings extensively about “mijn Hogeland” and its inhabitants.
education
The open-air museum Openluchtmuseum Het Hoogeland is located in Warffum .
The middle vocational schools (in their Dutch abbreviated names vmbo , havo and vwo ), with school buildings in Warffum, Uithuizen and Wehe-den Hoorn, are called Het Hogeland College .