Educatie
Experience the historic city on your own by strolling through the town centre with this architectural guide. In it you will find an eastern and a western walking tour, both starting at St. Anna Bay near the Queen Emma pontoon-bridge. The eastern tour will guide you through the oldest part of Willemstad, nowadays called Punda, and through a small part of the Scharloo district. The length of this route is about 21/4 km. The western tour takes you through the Otrobanda district, on the other side of St. Anna Bay. The length of this route is about 2 km.
Willemstad, a UNESCO World Heritage City
The old city of Willemstad is made up of four quarters: Punda, Scharloo and Pietermaai at the eastern side and Otrobanda at the western side of St. Anna Bay, the deep water channel that divides Willemstad in two halves. About half of the buildings in historic Willemstad were proclaimed protected monuments in the 1990s by the island government. Approximately 750 monuments in a city structure that have not materially changed in the course of three centuries, originally Dutch but during its development influenced by various other cultures make Willemstad a unique city in the Caribbean. This uniqueness was the main consideration of UNESCO that led to placing ‘Historic Willemstad’ on the World Heritage List in December 1997.