About the town » Gemeente Oostzaan, Gemeente Oostzaan, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

Oostzaan is a municipality and a town in the Zaanstreek, Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. The town has a population of 9.104 inhabitats in December 2010. Oostzaan has got 11.49 km² land and 4.64 km² water. Oostzaan—together with Westzaan and Assendelft—are part of the Zaanstreek: the region around the River Zaan. This means that they are the three oldest towns around the Zaan. Oostzaan also plays a role in the VOC and WIC shipping and shipbuilding. Oostzaan had his own pirate called Claes Compaen. He sailed away from the Netherlands as a legal pirate captain, in the possession of pirate letters, but soon he began to ship their own account to conquer the English Channel, the Mediterranean, the African-Atlantic coast into the Caribbean to. The booty he was liquidated on the coast of Ireland, later in Sale and the Barbary Coast. There are a pair of streets called "Claes Compaen" in Oostzaan too. The village has a reformed Oostzaan cruciform (1760), Great Church, which includes two ship models that recall the days when Oostzaan community was a key shipping. In the eastern stands the windmill of Oostzaan, Zijderveld De Windjager (The Wind Hunter).