Assen

Assen grew around a Cistercian nunnery relocated here in the thirteenth century. The abbey had first been founded near Coevorden after the defeat and death of the bishop of Utrecht at the Battle of Ane in 1227, but its wet, barren site proved unsuitable. A drier place was found near the farms of Witten. Around 1600 the abbey's property was secularised, and its buildings became the seat of Drenthe's government. Assen remained a small settlement until King Louis Napoleon granted it city rights in 1809.