The Rhine is one of the major European rivers. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms the Swiss-Liechtenstein border and partly the Swiss-Austrian and Swiss-German borders. After that the Rhine defines much of the Franco-German border, after which it flows in a mostly northerly direction through the German Rhineland. Finally in Germany, the Rhine turns into a predominantly westerly direction and flows into the Netherlands where it eventually empties into the North Sea. It drains an area of 9,973 km2.
Flevoland is the twelfth and newest province of the Netherlands, established in 1986, when the southern and eastern Flevopolders, together with the Noordoostpolder, were merged into one provincial entity. It is in the centre of the country in the former Zuiderzee, which was turned into the freshwater IJsselmeer by the closure of the Afsluitdijk in 1932. Almost all of the land belonging to Flevoland was reclaimed in the 1950s and 1960s while splitting the Markermeer and Bordering lakes from the IJsselmeer. As to dry land, it is the smallest province of the Netherlands at 1,410 km2 (540 sq mi), but not gross land as that includes much of the waters of the fresh water lakes (meres) mentioned.
The IJsselmeer, also known as Lake IJssel in English, is a closed-off inland bay in the central Netherlands bordering the provinces of Flevoland, North Holland and Friesland. It covers an area of 1,100 km2 (420 sq mi) with an average depth of 4.5 m (15 ft). The river IJssel, which the lake was named after, flows into the IJsselmeer.
The Zuiderzee or Zuider Zee, historically called Lake Almere and Lake Flevo, was a shallow bay of the North Sea in the northwest of the Netherlands. It extended about 100 km inland and at most 50 km wide, with an overall depth of about 4 to 5 metres (13–16 feet) and a coastline of about 300 km. It covered 5,000 km2 (1,900 sq mi). Its name is Dutch for "southern sea", indicating that the name originates in Friesland, to the north of the Zuiderzee.
The IJssel is a Dutch distributary of the river Rhine that flows northward and ultimately discharges into the IJsselmeer, a North Sea natural harbour. It more immediately flows into the east-south channel around the Flevopolder, Flevoland which is kept at 3 metres below sea level. This body of water is then pumped up into the IJsselmeer.
The Zuiderzee Works is a system of dams and dikes, land reclamation and water drainage work, which was the largest hydraulic engineering project undertaken by the Netherlands during the twentieth century. The project involved the damming of the Zuiderzee, a large, shallow inlet of the North Sea, and the reclamation of land in the newly enclosed water using polders. Its main purposes are to improve flood protection and create additional land for agriculture.
The Delta Works is a series of construction projects in the southwest of the Netherlands to protect a large area of land around the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta from the sea. Constructed between 1954 and 1997, the works consist of dams, sluices, locks, dykes, levees, and storm surge barriers located in the provinces of South Holland and Zeeland.
Wieringen is in the province of North Holland in the Netherlands. Now a part of the municipality of Hollands Kroon, before 2012 it was a separate municipality, its name appearing in 8th and 9th century records. By 1200 it was an island, also named Wieringen, separated from the mainland during one of the severe storm floods in the late Middle Ages that changed the coastline. By draining, dikes and landfill from 1924 to 1932, the island was rejoined to the mainland.
The Afsluitdijk is a major dam and causeway in the Netherlands. It was constructed between 1927 and 1932 and runs from Den Oever in North Holland province to the village of Zurich in Friesland province, over a length of 32 kilometres (20 mi) and a width of 90 metres (300 ft), at an initial height above Amsterdam Ordnance Datum of between 6.7 metres (22 ft) along the section at Friesland, and 7.4 metres (24 ft) where it crosses the deep channel of the Vlieter. The height at the greater sea depths west of Friesland was required to be a minimum of 7 metres everywhere when originally constructed.
West Friesland is a contemporary region in the Northwest of the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland.
The Vecht is a Rhine branch in the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is sometimes called Utrechtse Vecht to avoid confusion with its Overijssel counterpart. The area along the river is called the Vechtstreek.
The IJ is a body of water, formerly a bay, in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is known for being Amsterdam's waterfront.
The Zuiderzee Museum, located on Wierdijk in the historic center of Enkhuizen, is a Dutch museum devoted to preserving the cultural heritage and maritime history from the old Zuiderzee region. With the closing of the Afsluitdijk on May 28, 1932, the Zuiderzee was split in two parts: the waters below the Afsluitdijk are now called the IJsselmeer, while the waters north of it are now considered to be part of the Waddenzee.
Flood control is an important issue for the Netherlands, as due to its low elevation, approximately two thirds of its area is vulnerable to flooding, while the country is densely populated. Natural sand dunes and constructed dikes, dams, and floodgates provide defense against storm surges from the sea. River dikes prevent flooding from water flowing into the country by the major rivers Rhine and Meuse, while a complicated system of drainage ditches, canals, and pumping stations keep the low-lying parts dry for habitation and agriculture. Water control boards are the independent local government bodies responsible for maintaining this system.
The Merwede is the name of several connected stretches of river in the Netherlands, between the cities of Woudrichem, Dordrecht and Papendrecht. The river is part of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and is mostly fed by the river Rhine.
The Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta is a river delta in the Netherlands formed by the confluence of the Rhine, the Meuse and the Scheldt rivers. In some cases, the Scheldt delta is considered a separate delta to the Rhine–Meuse delta. The result is a multitude of islands, branches and branch names, in which a waterway that appears to be one continuous stream may have numerous separate names for different sections, e.g. Rhine → Bijlands Kanaal → Pannerdens Kanaal → Nederrijn → Lek → Nieuwe Maas → Het Scheur → Nieuwe Waterweg. Since the Rhine contributes most of the water, the term "Rhine Delta" is commonly used, although this name is also used for the delta where the Alpine Rhine flows into Lake Constance. By some calculations, the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta covers 25,347 km2 (9,787 sq mi), making it the largest in Europe.
The Markermeer is a 700 km2 (270 sq mi) lake in the central Netherlands in between North Holland, Flevoland, and its smaller and larger neighbors, the IJmeer and IJsselmeer. A shallow lake at 3 to 5 m in depth, matching the reclaimed land to its west, north-west and east it is named after the small former island, now peninsula, of Marken on its west shore.
The Oude Maas is a distributary of the river Rhine, and a former distributary of the river Maas, in the Dutch province of South Holland. It begins at the city of Dordrecht where the Beneden Merwede river splits into the Noord and the Oude Maas. It ends when it joins the Nieuwe Maas to form Het Scheur.
The Marneslenk (Dutch), or Marneslinke (Frisian), or Marne estuary, was a former estuary in western Friesland south of Harlingen, now reclaimed to be farmland. It formed around the year 300 AD, when rising sea levels also enlarged the Almere lake to the southwest, and formed the Middelzee to the east. The Marneslenk had its mouth on the Vlie and stretched southeasterly to the area of Tirns and then headed east to the Middelzee. Between 1100 and 1300 AD the watercourse was reclaimed and turned into fields by the construction of dykes. One such dyke is the Pingjumer Gulden Halsband. The Bedelaarsvaart (Bidlersfeart) and Harnzerfeartis are what remains of this watercourse nowadays.
