Rijksmonument

A rijksmonument (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈrɛiksmoːnyˌmɛnt]) is a national heritage site of the Netherlands, listed by the agency Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE) acting for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.

To be designated, a place must be over 50 years old and meet additional criteria. There are around 51,000 designated rijksmonuments in the Netherlands.

The program was started during the Hague Convention in 1954. The current legislation governing the monuments is the Monumentenwet van 1988 ("Monument Law of 1988").

The organization responsible for caring for the monuments, which used to be called Monumentenzorg, was recently renamed, and is now called Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed. In June 2009, the Court of The Hague decided that individual purchasers of buildings that were listed as rijksmonuments would be exempt from paying transfer tax, effective from 1 May 2009. Previously this exemption had only applied to legal entities.

Many Dutch tourist attractions are rijksmonuments, such as castles or windmills. Some notable windmills are De Schoolmeester, Westzaan, a smock mill in North Holland, the only wind powered paper mill in the world, listed as rijksmonument number 40013;De Wieker Meule, De Wijk, in Drenthe province, built in 1829 and restored to working order, listed as rijksmonument number 39657; and Mellemolen, a hollow post mill in Friesland, also restored to working order, listed as rijksmonument number 35937. Among the rijksmonuments are also many churches.

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