Den Oever

The Afsluitdijk (Closure-dike) is a major dam in the Netherlands, constructed between 1927 and 1933 and running from Den Oever on Wieringen in North Holland province, to the village of Zurich (mun. Wûnseradiel) in Fryslân province, over a length of 32 km and a width of 90 m, at an initial height of 7.25 m above sea-level ( 53° 00' 00" N  05° 10' 00" E) . It is a fundamental part of the larger Zuiderzee Works, damming off the Zuiderzee, a salt water inlet of the North Sea and turni ...

Read more here: » Afsluitdijk: Encyclopedia - Afsluitdijk

Wieringen (population: 8,451 in 2004) is a municipality consisting of the former island of Wieringen in the northwest of the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. There are plans to make Wieringen an island again by widening the Amsteldiepkanaal into a lake called the Wieringerrandmeer. The municipality covers an area of 212.50 km² (of which 185.73 km² is water) and includes these towns, villages and townships: Dam, De Haukes, De Hoelm, Den Oever, Hippolytushoef, Hollebalg, Noordburen, Oosterklief, Oosterland, Smerp, ...

Including:

• Wieringen - History

Read more here: » Wieringen: Encyclopedia - Wieringen

The other major project started in 1927 was the construction of the 200 km² polder in the northwest, the first and the smallest of the five projected polders. It would replace the body of water south of Wieringen known as the Wieringermeer which would also become the name of the new polder. It would be the only polder reclaimed from the Zuiderzee itself (the others were reclaimed after the Afsluitdijk was finished), but it wasn't entirely the first. A small test polder of some 0.4 km² was constructed in 1926–1927 near Andijk in North Holland to research the effects drainage would have on the soil of the Zuiderze ...

See also:

Zuiderzee Works, Zuiderzee Works - Prelude, Zuiderzee Works - Zuiderzee becomes IJsselmeer, Zuiderzee Works - New land, Zuiderzee Works - Noordoostpolder, Zuiderzee Works - The Flevolands, Zuiderzee Works - The fifth polder

Read more here: » Zuiderzee Works: Encyclopedia II - Zuiderzee Works - New land

The fifth polder does not yet exist and may never be completed. It had been the intention to start building the southwestern polder, known as the Markerwaard, at several points during the project, but other polders took precedence. Parts of it have in fact been built; in 1941 it was decided to begin work on the first section of dike, but the German occupiers stopped construction that same year. This dike originated on Marken, the last of the IJsselmeer islands, and went north for some 2 km where it ends abruptly today. After Worl ...

See also:

Zuiderzee Works, Zuiderzee Works - Prelude, Zuiderzee Works - Zuiderzee becomes IJsselmeer, Zuiderzee Works - New land, Zuiderzee Works - Noordoostpolder, Zuiderzee Works - The Flevolands, Zuiderzee Works - The fifth polder

Read more here: » Zuiderzee Works: Encyclopedia II - Zuiderzee Works - The fifth polder

The period immediately following World War II was spent restoring the Wieringermeerpolder and catching up with work on the Noordoostpolder, but it wasn't long before attention turned towards the next project: Eastern Flevoland (Oostelijk Flevoland), which at 540 km² was the largest of the new polders. In 1950 work commenced on several construction-islands in the middle of the IJsselmeer, the largest of which would be Lelystad-Haven which housed a community of dike-builders. The experience of the Noordoostpolder had shown ...

See also:

Zuiderzee Works, Zuiderzee Works - Prelude, Zuiderzee Works - Zuiderzee becomes IJsselmeer, Zuiderzee Works - New land, Zuiderzee Works - Noordoostpolder, Zuiderzee Works - The Flevolands, Zuiderzee Works - The fifth polder

Read more here: » Zuiderzee Works: Encyclopedia II - Zuiderzee Works - The Flevolands

A new study, commissioned after doubts had arisen over the financial feasibility of the project, recommended that work should not only continue, but should be accelerated. It was therefore decided to start the next two major projects at the same time, in 1927. The most important of these would be the main dam, the Afsluitdijk (Closure-dike), running from Den Oever on Wieringen to the village of Zurich in Frisia (Dutch: Friesland) over a length of 32 km and a width of 90 m, at an initial hei ...

See also:

Zuiderzee Works, Zuiderzee Works - Prelude, Zuiderzee Works - Zuiderzee becomes IJsselmeer, Zuiderzee Works - New land, Zuiderzee Works - Noordoostpolder, Zuiderzee Works - The Flevolands, Zuiderzee Works - The fifth polder

Read more here: » Zuiderzee Works: Encyclopedia II - Zuiderzee Works - Zuiderzee becomes IJsselmeer

In 1916 the dikes at several places along the Zuiderzee (the current IJsselmeer) broke under the stress put on them by a winter storm, and the land behind them was flooded as had often happened in previous centuries. This particular flooding, however, provided the decisive impetus to implement the existing plans to tame the Zuiderzee. The concept of making the Zuiderzee more docile had first originated in the seventeenth century, but the ambitious solutions sought then were not ...

See also:

Zuiderzee Works, Zuiderzee Works - Prelude, Zuiderzee Works - Zuiderzee becomes IJsselmeer, Zuiderzee Works - New land, Zuiderzee Works - Noordoostpolder, Zuiderzee Works - The Flevolands, Zuiderzee Works - The fifth polder

Read more here: » Zuiderzee Works: Encyclopedia II - Zuiderzee Works - Prelude

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 smaller, and therefore considered easier, northeastern one. This would be the Noordoostpolder, meaning simply "Northeast-polder". Initial financial difficulties meant that it wasn't until 1936 that construction began. Two dikes, totaling 55 km in length, steadily grew in the IJsselmeer, one starting from Lemmer in Friesland and from the island of Urk, the other from Vollenhov ...

See also:

Zuiderzee Works, Zuiderzee Works - Prelude, Zuiderzee Works - Zuiderzee becomes IJsselmeer, Zuiderzee Works - New land, Zuiderzee Works - Noordoostpolder, Zuiderzee Works - The Flevolands, Zuiderzee Works - The fifth polder

Read more here: » Zuiderzee Works: Encyclopedia II - Zuiderzee Works - Noordoostpolder