Drachten.

Drachten sits in the heart of Friesland, built largely in the twentieth century around a network of canals that still shape its layout. The town grew rapidly after the Second World War, and its post-war planning drew on modernist ideas, visible today in the open layout of streets and public squares. Drachten is also known for a traffic design concept developed locally in the early 2000s, which removed many signs and signals from the central junction at Laweiplein, letting different kinds of road users share the space on equal terms, an approach since studied by planners across Europe. Philips ran a large factory in Drachten for decades, manufacturing electric shavers and other consumer electronics, and the plant remains part of the town's economic life. Away from the centre, cycling paths follow the canals into the surrounding Frisian countryside, flat and green, dotted with farms and small waterways. Markets, local shops and small museums fill in the rest of the pattern of daily life. The result is a town shaped as much by engineering and design experiments as by water, where Friesland's flat landscape and old waterway traditions meet one of the Netherlands' more unusual urban planning stories.