Lunen­burg is the best sur­viv­ing exam­ple of a planned British colo­nial set­tle­ment in North Amer­i­ca. Estab­lished in 1753, it has retained its orig­i­nal lay­out and over­all appear­ance, based on a rec­tan­gu­lar grid pat­tern drawn up in the home coun­try. The inhab­i­tants have man­aged to safe­guard the city‘s iden­ti­ty through­out the cen­turies by pre­serv­ing the wood­en archi­tec­ture of the hous­es, some of which date from the 18th cen­tu­ry.