Zuiderzee Works

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.

The enormous scale of the works required the creation of a joint venture company comprising several large dredging contractors, known as the Maatschappij tot Uitvoering van Zuiderzeewerken.

Hendrik Stevin in 1667 was the first to publish a study ("How the Fury of the North Sea may be stopped and Holland may be protected against it") proposing to drain the Zuiderzee.

[4] Plans were developed during the second half of the nineteenth century to protect areas from the force of the open sea and creating new agricultural land.

[5] It consisted of a large dam connecting the northern tip of North Holland with the western coast of Friesland and the creation of initially four polders in the northwest, the northeast, southeast (later split in two), and southwest of what would be renamed the IJsselmeer (IJssel-lake).

On 13 and 14 January 1916 the dikes at several places along the Zuiderzee broke under the stress of a winter storm, and the land behind them flooded, as had often happened in previous centuries.

[4] The Dienst der Zuiderzeewerken (Zuiderzee Works Department), the government body responsible for overseeing the construction and initial management, was set up in May 1919.

It was an area much used by the Dutch Underground resistance during World War II, as the fresh polder offered numerous hiding places.

This new land led to an identity change for towns including Lemmer, Vollenhove, Blokzijl due to losing their direct access to the sea and Kuinre was completely cut off from open water.

Construction started on the 18 km (11 mi) dike from Den Oever on Wieringen and the new construction-island of Oude Zeug and progressed satisfactorily.

"Drained" in this context does not mean the land was wholly dry; extensive pools of shallow water still littered the muddy landscape.

This sturdy plant helped evaporate the water and bring air into the soil, thereby solidifying its structure and further preventing the emergence of unwanted weeds.

After the first infrastructure was put in place, the reed was burnt and replaced by rapeseed, turning the newborn polder into a yellow sea of flowers in spring.

[4] During the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II the invading forces at first did not interfere; their engineers inspected the project as a model for reclaiming the Frische Haff.

On 17 April 1945, in the closing days of World War II, the Wehrmacht breached the Wieringermeer dike with explosives to flood the polder and prevent allied advance.

The original 1891 plan called for the largest, southeastern polder to be built after the Wieringermeer, but it was decided in 1932 to give precedence to the northeastern one, which was smaller and therefore considered easier.

The polder contains two former islands: the glacial moraine hill of Urk, and the elongated strip of peat land known as Schokland, largely abandoned in the 19th century.

Both ceased to be islands: Urk on 3 October 1939, when the dike reaching from Lemmer was closed and Schokland when the surrounding water was consequently drained.

Ten smaller villages, conceived more as agricultural communities, were planned in a wide circle around Emmeloord, at a distance chosen to be easily covered by bicycle.

From Emmeloord three canals carry their water to three pumping stations, the Buma near Lemmer, the Smeenge at Vollenhove, and finally the Vissering in Urk.

This city, located in the centre of the reclaimed lands, was developed as Lelystad (1966), named after the man who had played a crucial role in the design and realisation of the Zuiderzee Works.

Other more conventional settlements had already developed by then; Dronten, the local major town, was founded in 1962, followed in 1963 by two smaller satellite villages, Swifterbant and Biddinghuizen.

Changing agricultural needs and increased motorised mobility meant many farming villages were unnecessary and the number of towns was eventually reduced to two.

The amount of agricultural land did not increase; it diminished as a result of the building of Lelystad (a city envisioned to eventually house at least 100,000 inhabitants.)

Due to the geographically favourable location of the southern polder to the heavily urbanised centre of the Netherlands and in particular Amsterdam, the planners devised a design that would include a large new urban area, to be called Almere, in order to relieve the housing shortage and increasing overcrowding on the old land.

After only a couple of years this landscape of shallow pools, islets and swamps became a popular resting and foraging area for many species of waterfowl, to the extent that it rapidly turned into a nature reserve of national significance.

After World War II, the eastern polder was chosen as the next project, but Marken was not wholly ignored; on 17 October 1957, a 3.5 km (2.2 mi) long dike was closed, running south of the now former island to the North Holland mainland.

The original post-war designs had called for a 410 km2 (160 sq mi) polder, yet many different proposals were later put forth in an effort to combine the benefits of both the Markerwaard and Markermeer, all to no avail.

In 2012, plans emerged to create the Marker Wadden,[7] a group of islands designed to establish nature reserves in the north of the Markermeer.

After the new municipalities of Southern Flevoland were established in 1984, belonging to no province as was the case with Lelystad, the provincial issue required renewed attention.