Why the Netherlands Went to War With the Sea

Morning Netherlanders!

The Netherlands went to war with the sea… AND WON!

Crazy story…

It’s about 1300:

And the Netherlands has a bit of a problem.

Its land is VERY low lying.

Much of it is literally at or below sea level.

Meaning they are under constant threat from… the sea!

Floods would come in…

Pick up a town…

And leave.

It kinda sucked.

But the Netherlands isn’t gonna give up so easily.

So they decide to fight back…

How?

Well, they come up with this super clever system to take land BACK from the ocean!

Basically they build these massive mud walls around an area of sea they want to reclaim.

Cool, but how are you supposed to get the water out??

Simple.

They build a bunch of windmills along the mud wall, and as they spin, they power a simple water pump that pumps all the water out of the area.

Then they simply seed it…

Road it…

And house it…

And Tada… New land!

It turns out this land reclamation idea worked so well that they decided to do it again.

And again…

And AGAIN!!!

Today, roughly 20% of the Netherlands is land that was once underwater.

Netherlands 1, Ocean 0

Stay Cute,
Henry & Dylan 🌈

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