Windmills are found basically in areas where altitudinal differences are small. In mountainous areas water mills are predominant. This is a logic historic development, since water in streams is normally flowing all year round. Even in areas such as central England, in Denmark, in the Netherlands, with limited differences in altitude, both windmills and watermills can be found in the same regions. Running a windmill means dependence of wind. Nevertheless, windmills are found in a whole range of different areas in Europe, each showing specific regional characteristics.

Have you ever been lost in Europe and would you like to know where you are after taking a look at the scenery in your neighbourhood? If a wind mill is close, it might give you an indication of the region where you are. This possibility is due to the situation that windmill types are regionally determined. Regional groups of windmills show relatively little variation compared to the diversity between groups. In this way these groups could be compared to the principle of populations in biology.

The datamodel Windmills of Europe of the program Determinator presents these groups throughout Europe and might support you to find out the region where you can find yourself. It provides descriptions and images of all major wind mill types, ready to browse or to use in a step-wise identification. A demonstration version of Determinator and the wind mill datamodel can be downloaded from the Download page.

The Dutch society 'De Hollandse Molen', supported by several Dutch organisations, has developed a Shock Wave Flash application for identifying Dutch wind and water mills. This small and very beautiful application (in Dutch) is comparable to a part of the functionality of Determinator, but lacks descriptions of types and images of examples per type.