gemeente (municipality), northern Netherlands. Founded in 1551, Heerenveen (“Lords' Peat Bog”) was at first a peat-cutting town. Now industrialized, it is home to businesses dedicated to food-processing, electronics, and the manufacture of buses and bicycles. It has a 17th-century town hall and a museum of bicycles and motorcycles. Nearby is the Oranjewoud, a small wooded park, once a possession of the house of Orange-Nassau. Pop. (2007 est.) 42,776.