Aartswoud (West Frisian: Ierswoud[1]) is a village in the Dutch province of North Holland, part of the municipality of Opmeer.

The village sits on the Westfriese Omringdijk, a dike completed in 1250 that protects an area of 800 km2 (310 sq mi), and is now an accesspoint for several nature reserves that reclaim the land, the landscape, the water levels, and the flora and fauna of the earlier West-Frisian countryside.

[1] An edict from 1404 mandates that the dike at Aartswoud should always be able to be breached in case of an emergency; this happened in 1573, during the Siege of Alkmaar, when polders in the area of the Spanish encampment were flooded.

[6] The village was the location of some excitement in 1799 when, during the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland, Batavian commander Herman Willem Daendels charged at a troop of British soldiers led by Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart, and captured twenty men and thirteen horses.

In the middle of the 18th century it was owned by Willem Maurits van Cats [nl], and by 1844 by Mattheus Johannes Worbert, count of Wassenaar.

[8] A church in Aartswoud is attested probably in 1395 under the name Nederswout, and certainly for the years 1460–1550, according to the archives of the Domfabriek [nl], the administrative center belonging to St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht.

[10] Its square brick tower, in three sections surmounted by a small stone dome, is medieval and dates from the first half of the 16th century.

[4] It has a box pew dating from 1641, richly decorated with "beautiful examples of 17th-c wood carvings",[11] which belonged to the Soete van Laecken family, according to a heraldic image.

[4] Local folklore holds that the church tower also functioned as a lighthouse, since the coast at Aartswoud was dangerous, and that fires were also built to confuse ships in hopes of them foundering, so their cargo could be stolen.

[24] The landscape evidences the entire history of the West-Frisian land, including inversieruggen (higher areas of sand in former mudflat areas), daliegaten (holes formed by the digging up of clay, which then filled up with peat that continues to sink, as opposed to the surrounding clay ground), the Omringdijk itself, and the subdivision (verkaveling) of the 17th century.

Part of the area has been turned into a wetland designed to mimic the tidal landscape that existed before the Omringdijk and to serve as a reservoir at high water.

A creek is surrounded by wet grasslands, attracting wading birds; the area is likely to flood once every five years, and can contain 60,000 m3 (2.1 million cu ft) of water.