[5] For some time during the later 19th and early 20th centuries, Marken and its inhabitants were the focus of considerable attention by folklorists, ethnographers and physical anthropologists, who regarded the small fishing town as a relic of the traditional native culture that was destined to disappear as modernization of the Netherlands gained pace.

[6] Among them were Johann Friedrich Blumenbach who examined a human skull from the island which he called Batavus genuinus; and was the Belgian painter Xavier Mellery who stayed in Marken at the request of Charles De Coster.

A partial dike, built in 1941 in the north, is the first phase of that project which was stopped by World War II.

[8] Marken is in the municipality of Waterland in the east of the province of North Holland in the west of the Netherlands.

Marken is a peninsula in the Markermeer, of which is it is the namesake, and is connected to the mainland of North Holland by a causeway.