Assendelft () is a town in the

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

North Holland North Holland (, ) is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands in the northwestern part of the country. It is located on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht (province), Utrecht, and west of Friesland and Flevola ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. It is a part of the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

of Zaanstad. Assendelft was a separate municipality until 1974, when the municipality of Zaanstad was formed. However, Assendelft didn't want to be part of Zaanstad and pled together with Krommenie to be part of a new municipality called Krommenie-Assendelft. Zaanstad is part of the Amsterdam Agglomeration ( GA). The North Sea Canal connects Assendelft with

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

and

Velsen Velsen () is a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is located on both sides of the North Sea Canal. On the north side of the North Sea Canal there is a major steel plant, Tata Steel IJmuiden, formerly known as ...

, and it lies about 13 km northeast of

Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English language, English) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the Provinces of the Nether ...

and about 15 km south of Alkmaar.

History

Assendelft is one of the oldest settlements in North Holland, with signs of settlement dating from as early as 500BC. The earliest written form of the name appears as 'Ascmannedilf' in 1063. The name is derived from the old Germanic word for Norsemen, 'Ascomanni', 'dilf' most likely meaning 'dug by'.

Train services

The town is served by Krommenie-Assendelft railway station. From here, there are four trains an hour to Amsterdam, with a journey time of 25 minutes.

Rural culture

Known is the local

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...

breed, called "Assendelfter". It is an ancient pencilled breed, related to the pencilled Hamburg chicken.

References

Zaanstad Populated places in North Holland Former municipalities of North Holland {{NorthHolland-geo-stub