The Windmills Of Kinderdijk

The village of Kinderdijk is located in the Netherlands, about 50 miles from where I live. Kinderdijk is situated in a region that lies below sea-level. Called polders, these regions are often land reclaimed from a body of water, such as a lake or marshes.
To drain the polder, a system of 19 windmills was built between 1738 and 1740. Their purpose was to pump the excess water into a reservoir until the level of the river had fallen enough to pump the water back into river Lek. This group of mills represents the largest concentration of old windmills in the Netherlands, and is today a popular tourist site.