Vriezenveen (Lower Saxon: 't Vjenne, Venne, Vjenne, Vreeznven or Vreeinvenne) is a town in the municipality of Twenterand in the Dutch province of Overijssel. The population was 13,800 on January 1, 2020. Until July 1, 2002, Vriezenveen formed an independent municipality together with the villages of De Pollen, Westerhaar-Vriezenveensewijk, Aadorp and the hamlets Bruinehaar, Weitemanslanden and Westerhoeven. In 2001, the municipality of Vriezenveen was merged with the municipality of Den Ham, which included the villages of Den Ham, Vroomshoop, and Geerdijk. The new municipality was called Vriezenveen and renamed Twenterand in 2003. The town hall of Twenterand is located in Vriezenveen. The dependance of the town hall in Den Ham was closed on May 30, 2008. History The oldest mention of Vriezenveen dates from 1364, when Evert van Hekeren, lord of Almelo, wrote a charter for the free Frisians, their heirs and all the people who lived on the moor, from the Wierdense Weuste to the Bawesbeek. The people who lived on the moor were obliged to pay one bucket of butter a year, measured according to the standard of Zwolle, on St. Martin's Day at Huis Almelo. This concerned a lease of butter and was paid in kind; the lease could not be bought off. The lord of Almelo had allowed the free Frisians to colonize the moor above his land. Almelervene, as Vriezenveen was called before the 15th century, was created from forty farms, roughly stretching from the current Schipsloot to the later excavated canal of Overijssel. Each farm had a width of sixteen fields (16 × 7 is 112 metres). To the east of the settlement, up to the Bawesbeek, an area remained, the so-called Oosterhoeven. This area was not divided and it is rumored that it was possibly the joint property of the residents. To the west of the settlement, there too was a similar area of undivided ground from the Boerstege to the Stouwe. These were the Westerhoeven and Woesten. It is rumored that these lands were also joint property. The Almelervene settlement grew; By the mid-15th century, the village had already changed so much that the various farms were no longer sixteen fields wide, but were reduced to ten, or even eight fields wide. The German bishop from Münster, Bernhard von Galen, aptly nicknamed Bommen Berend (English: Bombing Bernard), plundered and robbed Twente around the year 1665. Vriezenveen was spared until 1665, because it