Miniature Walcheren

Miniature Walcheren is an open-air scale model of the entire Walcheren peninsula at 1:20 — large enough to walk through at something like giant scale. The model covers around 4,000 square metres and reproduces the farms, villages, churches, windmills, and coastal defences of Zeeland's westernmost island in extraordinary detail.

Children love it for the obvious reason, but adults will find it genuinely interesting as a record of the 1950s landscape of Zeeland. The model is in a park setting and can be combined with a walk along the old city walls nearby. It is open from April to October.

things to do sight
A story
The model was commissioned in 1954 by Queen Juliana, who wanted a permanent record of the Walcheren landscape before it was irrevocably changed by postwar reconstruction. Over 300 craftspeople worked on it; the windmills' sails actually turn and the trains run. It remains almost exactly as it was built, which now makes it a period piece in its own right — a 1:20 record of a world that has since changed considerably.