Limburg
Limburg demonstrates secondary succession after industrial collapse: Europe's first coal transition, with 75,000 job losses transformed into knowledge campuses and EU treaty birthplace.
Limburg became Europe's first region to undergo a managed transition away from coal—and the lessons still inform energy policy today. When Groningen's natural gas was discovered in 1959, Limburg's coal mines became uneconomical overnight. By 1965, the government announced complete closure; 45,000 miners and 30,000 supply chain workers lost jobs. The province's unemployment doubled the national average by 1977.
The transition strategy combined immediate compensation with long-term restructuring. The provincial development agency LIOF, established 1975, attracted over 100 new companies. Maastricht University opened in 1976 specifically as part of regional revitalization. The former mining regions now host the Chemelot chemical campus and Maastricht Health campus—knowledge hubs that evolved from the technical expertise mining left behind. This is secondary succession in economic form: disturbance cleared the old system, allowing new industries to colonize available resources.
Limburg's geography makes it unlike any other Dutch province. The southernmost tip at Vaalserberg reaches 322 meters—the continental Netherlands' highest point—where Dutch, Belgian, and German borders meet. The hilly Heuvelland contrasts with the flat polders elsewhere. This three-border location shaped the 1992 Maastricht Treaty signing, which created the European Union and launched the euro. The province itself was split in 1839, when Belgium's independence divided the medieval Duchy of Limburg into western (Belgian) and eastern (Dutch) halves. Maastricht remained Dutch because a general refused to withdraw—path dependence through military stubbornness.