ancient ruins
Hunebedcentrum
Museum in Borger beside D27, the largest of the Netherlands' 5,000-year-old hunebed dolmens: 22-metre granite burial chambers older than Stonehenge, scattered along the Drenthe hondsrug ridge.
12 km · about 25 min drive
EuropeNetherlandsGroningen
Stadskanaal
Groningen, Netherlands · Europe
About Stadskanaal
Stadskanaal is worth a stop: 10 minutes from Gasselternijveen, 12km from Hunebedcentrum.
Stadskanaal is in Groningen, Netherlands, with about 20,000 people. You drive on the right here. The nearest town is Gasselternijveen, about 7 km away.
Stadskanaal (Dutch pronunciation: [ˌstɑtskaːˈnaːl] ) is a town and municipality in the province of Groningen in the northeast of the Netherlands. It was named after the canal Stadskanaal which literally means "City Canal" and it is a linear village. In the Gronings dialect the town is called "Knoal" and the locals areRead more
called "Knoalsters".
From 1800 until 1900 this area was ideal for its peat mining, and so the canal came to ship all the peat to Groningen, the capital of the province. With industrialization, many of Stadskanaal's peat colony features, as well as many of its characteristic shophouses, were lost. The town now has 19,060 inhabitants (2023), making it one of the largest towns in the province. Together with Nieuw-Buinen, located across the provincial Drenthe border (the straight-line Semslinie), it forms a double core with just under 24,000 inhabitants. The Stadskanaal municipality overall has a population of 32,715.
The municipality of Stadskanaal was created on 1 January 1969, by merging the former municipality of Onstwedde with part of the former municipality of Wildervank.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is there to see near Stadskanaal?
Within an hour or so of Stadskanaal: Hunebedcentrum (12 km), Fort Bourtange (16 km), TT Circuit Assen (29 km).
Are there any good drives near Stadskanaal?
The nearest famous roads are Afsluitdijk and Houtribdijk.
Where is Stadskanaal?
Stadskanaal is in Groningen, Netherlands, about 7 km from Gasselternijveen.
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Quick Information
- Population
- 20,000
- Continent
- Europe
- Country
- Netherlands
- Region
- Groningen
- Timezone
- Europe/Amsterdam
- Coordinates
- 52.9895, 6.9504
Emergency & Services
Essential numbers in Netherlands
Watch for cyclists. They generally have priority.
Full driving guide for NetherlandsTags
Worth the detour from Stadskanaal
3 notable places within an hour's drive.
photogenic
Fort Bourtange
1593 star fortress village in remote Groningen restored to its 1742 form: a living five-pointed star of moats, bastions and wooden drawbridges with a cobbled marketplace at its heart, most striking from the ramparts or the air.
16 km · about 20 min drive
racetrack
TT Circuit Assen
The Cathedral of Speed -- the only circuit to have hosted a MotoGP round every year since the championship began in 1949.
29 km · about 35 min drive
Driving in Netherlands
- Drives on
- the right
- Petrol
- ~€2.04/litre
- Motorway tolls
- None
When to drive here
April to October
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