YozoraAtlas

How dark is the sky in the Netherlands?

Sky darkness for 67 towns and parks in the Netherlands, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 9 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is Boschplaat (21.66, Bortle 4), the brightest Delft (18.04, Bortle 8).

19 Bortle class, 1 pristine to 9 city center park or dark-sky place city

Numbers like 21.95 or 16.97 are the brightness of the sky overhead on a clear, moonless night, in mag/arcsec². The scale runs backwards: a lower number means a brighter sky, from about 22 for a natural sky to about 17 in a city center.
How the readings are made

NASA satellite night-lights map of the Netherlands with every place marked

Darkest skies in the Netherlands

Among the places on this site. Plenty of land between them is just as dark, with no town or park to name it by.

Brightest city skies in the Netherlands

Darkest place in each province of the Netherlands

Province	Places	Dark places Bortle 1 to 4	Darkest place
Drenthe	5 places	3 dark	Drents-Friese Wold National Park21.21 · Bortle 4
Flevoland	3 places	1 dark	Nieuw Land National Park20.67 · Bortle 4
Friesland	3 places	2 dark	Boschplaat21.66 · Bortle 4
Gelderland	6 places	1 dark	Veluwezoom National Park20.51 · Bortle 4
Groningen	2 places	1 dark	Lauwersmeer National Park21.43 · Bortle 4
Limburg	5 places	0 dark	De Maasduinen National Park20.46 · Bortle 5
North Brabant	12 places	0 dark	De Groote Peel National Park20.16 · Bortle 5
North Holland	10 places	0 dark	Den Helder20.03 · Bortle 5
Overijssel	8 places	1 dark	Sallandse Heuvelrug National Park20.81 · Bortle 4
South Holland	9 places	0 dark	De Biesbosch National Park19.91 · Bortle 5
Utrecht	4 places	0 dark	Utrechtse Heuvelrug National Park20.19 · Bortle 5