Schiermonnikoog Island Small Island In Netherlands

Schiermonnikoog island is from the west reckoned to be the fifth inhabited Dutch wadden island and belongs to the province of Friesland. The island is also a municipality which bears the same name. Schiermonkoog is the smallest municipality in the Netherlands in terms of population, and is also the municipality with the lowest population density in the Netherlands. The highest dune top is 20 meters.

The municipality lives mainly on tourism. The island is praised for its tranquility, which is maintained, among other things by the fact that visitors have to leave their cars on the shore.

In the Middle Ages Schiermonkoog was an outhof of the Cistercianmonastery Claercamp from Rinsumageest near Dokkum one of the monasteries in Friesland. The monks of the monastery, who dammed land carried grey pijen. This is how the name came into being: schier means grey, and eye is etymologically the same as egg in island. In 1961, a statue of a monk,"The Schiere Monk", was erected in the village by Martin van Waning.

The name Schiermonkoog is first mentioned in 1440 in a deed. In 1580 Friesland became Protestant. The monastery lost all possessions, and Schiermonkoog became part of the Frieslandregion. The region sold the island due to lack of money, and between 1638 and 1945 Schiermonkoog was therefore again privately owned. The Stachouwer family owned the island from 1640[2] to 1859. Between 1741 and 1761, Catherine Maria Stachouwer owned the island for two thirds. She called herself Freule van Schiermonkoog. Her idiosyncratic actions put her at a collision with the local population, and twice she invoked the protection of the States of Friesland.

From 1859 to 1893 the island was owned by the Hagenaar John Eric Banck. He had a new dike built and had the dunes planted with helmet grass to prevent sand drifts. The German count Berthold Hartwig Arthur Graf von Bernstorff, member of the Von Bernstorfffamily , bought the island in 1893 for 200,000 guilders. He had coniferous forests built for wood production. When he died in 1939, his son Bechtold Eugen count von Bernstorff inherited the island.
Schiermonkoog is adjacent to the North Sea,and south to the Wadden Sea. To the west lies Ameland and east rottumerplaat and the sandplate Bellow. The total length is 18 km and the total length of the cycle paths is 30 km.

The island is sliding further and further east by calving and silbbing. In 2005, the eastern part of the island was located in the same location as the west of the faded island of Bosch.