Veendam is a city in the Dutch province Groningen, situated 25km south-east of the capital and 20km west of the country border with Germany. The city is nicknamed Park City because of its location in a region full of nature and the city’s own green appearance. Tourist attractions include the green recreational areas, the City Hall, the football club BV Veendam, the subtropical water paradise Tropiqua, and the Groningen peat-district museum (Veenkoloniaal museum).

The municipality has 28,218 inhabitants and has an area of 78.81 square kilometres. Apart from the city Veendam, it consists of the following towns: Bareveld, Borgercompagnie, Kibbelgaarn, Korte Akkers, Numero Dertien, Ommelanderwijk, Tripscompagnie, Wildervank, Wildervanksterdallen, and Zuidwending.

Veendam as such was born in 1655. The existing habitations at that time became known as Veendam en Wildervank. These two separated in 1702 and went on independently as borough. Veendam consumed the smaller Wildervank in 1969.

The characteristic landscape surrounding Veendam emerged around three centuries ago when the local peat was mined and farmers cultivated the newly exposed land. Like a lot of other towns in the region, Veendam has a specific construction structure, which is named after lint (line, cord) in Dutch. Most houses are built next to the straight main road or waterline (mostly canals to transport the peat), so the city looks like one long string from the air. The centre of town is an exception: here the river called Oude Ae made the two artificial, originally parallel, canals go in other directions. This makes Veendam the only city with a fork structure.

The City Hall was built in 1878, on a piece of land that cost the administration 4,000 Dutch guilders. Veendam has an online representation at http://www.veendam.nl. The football club can be found at http://www.bvveendam.nl and the peat museum at http://www.veenkoloniaalmuseum.nl. Veendam also has the country’s largest ultramodern bathroom design shop, called Waterland (http://www.waterlandbadkamers.nl).

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