Madurodam

Madurodam is a miniature park and tourist attraction in the Scheveningen district of The Hague, Netherlands, home to a range of perfect 1:25 scale model replicas of famous Dutch castles, public buildings, and large industrial projects as found at various locations in the country. The park was opened in 1952 and has been visited by tens of millions of visitors since that date.In 2012 Madurodam celebrated its 60th anniversary.

Madurodam was named after George Maduro, a Jewish law student from Curaçao who fought the Nazi occupation forces as a member of the Dutch resistance and died at Dachau concentration camp in 1945. In 1946 Maduro was posthumously awarded the medal of Knight 4th-class of the Military Order of William, the highest and oldest military decoration in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, for the valor he had demonstrated in the Battle of the Netherlands against German troops.

Source: http://www.duinrell.com

Madurodam wants to show their visitors a realistic view of The Netherlands but then in a small version. Even the trees around the buildings are on the scale 1:25. These trees need to be kept small, so there is a lot of work in that. Also there are a lot of little people around the buildings. This shows the real life of the Dutch people. These ‘residents’ also change with the weather. In the winter they wear jackets and warm cloths and in the summer they wear t-shirts. Also the residents of Madurodam become more and more multicultural. Now it’s also possible to see some ‘residents’ who come from other countries (immigrants), because this is also the reality in real life in The Netherlands.

Some facts about Madurodam:

• The official opening of Madurodam was 2 Juli 1952.
• Madurodam has a railway network of approximately 4 km.
• Madurodam is the first city in the Netherlands that started with a chosen major.
• There are 50.000 lights in this city.
• The cars drive an average of 14,000 miles per year (which is almost the same as an average Dutchman).

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madurodam

Posted in: Netherlands