[clarification needed] This was three years after the Danish village of Tommerup had claimed such a title, but this time a large project was to ensue.

Wijk aan Zee came together with villages from England, Estonia, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Germany, Denmark, The Czech Republic and Hungary in an effort to determine the role and future of villages in Europe, but also to help each other find ways to cope with difficulties that come to small communities nowadays.

[clarification needed] It has attracted the attention of the Dutch government, who asked one of the initiators of the project to write an essay about how to 'build' villages.

[4] Recently, a Dutch journalist wrote a book about the project called 'Vital Villages', in which the thoughts and deeds of the 'village movement' are documented.

[5] In the dune landscape around Wijk aan Zee some bunkers still remain of the Atlantic Wall, built by the German occupying forces between 1940 and 1944.

All of these defences were protected by a combination of mine fields, tank ditches, and dams, some of which ran kilometres deep inland.

In total there were four places in the Netherlands where these "Mammoths’ Teeth" stood: Den Helder, Oostkapelle, The Hague and Wijk aan Zee.