Editing Zoetermeer (section)

==History==
[[File:Zoetermeer dorp.jpg|thumb|A street in the old town centre]]
[[File:ErfgoedLeiden LEI001016946 Interieur van de Nicolaaskerk in Zoetermeer.jpg|thumb|Interior of the Nicolaaskerk in Zoetermeer, 1869]]

The Zoetermeer Archaeological Working Group has found some Roman shards, but they are so few that it is not clear whether Zoetermeer already existed in Roman times. Excavation did find older animal material. During the extraction of sand for the new housing estates, bones of mammoths, aurochs and saber-toothed tigers surfaced from great depths. Those animals walked around here ten to a hundred thousand years ago.

The village of Zoetermeer is more than a thousand years old. In the Middle Ages, farmers dug so-called valley holes. The clay from those holes was used to improve their peatland. At the bottom of one such hole, Zoetermeer archaeologists found a carved wooden pole a few years ago, dating back to the year 985.

Zoetermeer used to have to pay a certain tax, the botting, to the Count of Holland. It is known that only the oldest towns in this province paid that tax. This shows that Zoetermeer must have been founded at least before 1100. The first written evidence for the existence of a village on the site of present-day Zoetermeer is found in 1269. Count Floris V then gave away part of the tax revenue here as a dowry.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://en.zoetermeer.nl/zoetermeer-geschiedenis-in-een-notendop | title=History of Zoetermeer | publisher=Gemeente Zoetermeer | access-date=13 September 2023}}</ref>

In the 13th century a village center was formed, which still exists as the historic Dorpsstraat. Until the 17th century there was a lake called the Zoetermeer. A reminder of this is the "Zoetermeerse Plas" in the Noord Aa recreation area at the northern edge of town; this artificial lake was created when tons of sand were needed to lay the foundation for new housing development, and the area north of Zoetermeer was a good source of this resource.

After the foundation of Zoetermeer, the settlement Zegwaart arose at the site of the present Zegwaartseweg. It was probably named after the sedge-covered worth, a low-lying area, where most people went to live. In the 13th century the settlement centers moved from Langeland and Zegwaartseweg to Dorpsstraat. In 1296 there was probably already a church on the site where the Oude Kerk now stands. Zoetermeer and Zegwaart remained independent, but formed one parish.

Zoetermeer developed more prosperously over the centuries than Zegwaart. That village suffered relatively often from fires and floods. On May 1, 1935, both municipalities were merged into the present municipality of Zoetermeer.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://en.zoetermeer.nl/zoetermeer-geschiedenis-in-een-notendop | title=History of Zoetermeer | publisher=Gemeente Zoetermeer | access-date=13 September 2023}}</ref> Seghwaert, an older way of spelling of Zegwaard, is now the name of a neighbourhood outside the old village centre.

[[File:Snelst groeiende gemeente van ons land.ogv|thumb|Newsreel from 1973 about the 'fastest growing municipality of our country']]
[[File:Zoetermeer-plaats-OpenTopo.jpg|thumb|Topographic map of Zoetermeer, 2014]]
Zoetermeer began to grow slightly when the first train service came around 1868. A few decades later the [[Nutricia|Numico]] factory started near the station. The real growth started in 1966, when there was an urgent need of houses from people around The Hague. From then they started to build new quarters around the old village centre, so Zoetermeer began to grow and became a city in the meantime.

Although contemporary Zoetermeer has the image of a modern city, there are still remains of the past. Like the old village centre with its small houses and the church with late medieval 15th-century clock tower (on picture, wooden top from 1642), and the old farms, surrounded by modern houses nowadays.

Lake Dobbe divides the old town from the new city centre, with the medieval village centre on one side of the lake and the modern high-rise and skyscrapers on the other side.