A handsome town in the province of N. Holland on the Spaarne, 4 m. from the sea, and 12 m. W. of Amsterdam; has a fine 15th-century church with a famous organ (8000 pipes), linen and other factories, etc., and is noted for its tulip-gardens and trade in flower-bulbs; it is intersected by several canals as well as the rivers; there existed at one time a lagoon of the Zuyder Zee called Haarlem Lake, which stretched southward as far as Leyden, between Amsterdam and Haarlem; but destructive inundations, caused by the tidal advance in 1836, compelled the Government to set about draining it, and this difficult engineering operation was successfully carried through by an English company during 1839-52.