Bloemencorso Zundert, World's Largest Flower Parade
Bloemencorso Zundert (or Flower Parade) is the largest flower parade in the world which dates all the way back to 1936. Right from the very start the people of Zundert have cherished their corso and passed it from each generation to the next. The parade takes place on the first Sunday of September, in the small town of Zundert in The Netherlands. The floats are large artworks made of steel wire, cardboard, paper-mache and flowers. In the Bloemencorso Zundert, only dahlias are used to decorate the objects and it takes thousands of them just to cover one float. Around 8 million dahlias are needed for the entire Corso.
All the work is done voluntarily. The huge floats are made by twenty different hamlets and each of them consists of hundreds of builders. Each herald has its own dahlia field. On these fields, dahlias grow in dozens of shapes and colors. The older members of the hamlet are often responsible for planting and growing the dahlias, while the younger ones build the float in large temporary tents that are built exclusively for the event.
During the Zundert Flower Parade, there are all kinds of music and theater performances. The local bars and restaurants join in with special offers and activities. The bloemencorso is also a competition. A professional and independent jury decides which float is the most beautiful and which hamlet will be crowned the winner of that year.
Zundert is on the border with Belgium, so the flower parade is a wonderful outing for both Dutch and Belgians. The colorful creations of the Zundert Flower Parade attract tens of thousands of visitors every year. The Netherlands ratified the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage on 15 May 2012.
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