How The Dutch Conquer Land That Doesn’t Exist

[Music] i want you to take a look at this map of the netherlands it's from the 1300s and it shows exactly how big the netherlands was at that time what's interesting is that rising sea levels should have caused this country to shrink by around 65 percent in size from what you see on this map so here's a map that shows what that would look like but interestingly this is not what happened if we fast forward seven centuries and look at a map of the netherlands today it hasn't shrunk in size instead it's grown in size by 17 percent so what happened well obviously they didn't go the traditional route by annexing land from belgium or germany the only two neighboring countries to the netherlands instead they created new land and somehow saved all the land below sea level from disappearing into the ocean so i had to figure out how they did this but on that journey i found out that the dutch wall with the ocean explained so much about the netherlands its culture history and why it turned out to be the country it is today i mean have you ever wondered why there are windmills in the netherlands why there are dams in amsterdam or why pretty much all tulips in the world come from here well turns out all of these things can be traced back to the dutch wall with the ocean so what better place to start than the iconic windmills that you see everywhere in the netherlands now you might be under the impression that these windmills have one purpose milling wheat but these engineering marbles were the cornerstone in the wall with the ocean you see their main purpose wasn't to mill wheat but instead to pump out water from one place to another which is a key part in how the dutch create new land and the way it works is they begin by sectioning off the area they want to reclaim by making these barriers also known as dikes then they would build windmills on top of these dikes that could draw the energy from the wind and use that to drain the water out of the enclosed area into the ocean creating patches of land that lie beneath sea level these are called polders it seems simple but the ingenuity of this method simply can't be understated you will have to remember they began using this method in the 1300s and therefore they had none of the technology we have today so to accomplish their goals of beating the ocean getting their land back and saving their country from drowning they had to come up with something brilliant and windmills were the answer and while windmills aren't necessary today the netherlands still has around 1 000 of them scattered around the country and even though they've gone on to use much more sophisticated methods to drain water the windmills are left as symbols that represent the long history of dutch dominance over the ocean but wait a second what do they use this reclaimed landfill considering draining out sea water from an area will leave you with land that is made up of sand salt and clay which isn't the type of soil you typically want to use for anything useful like say farmland so what do they use it for well despite the composition of the soil not being suited for traditional farming the dutch have found a way to use this type of soil to their advantage you see it turns out that the seabed soil with a mix of rain sunshine and clever gravitation eventually becomes extremely fertile to one crop in particular and that crop is flowers most notably tulips and since the netherlands has numerous patches of land with the soil due to their land reclamation flowers are big business in the netherlands in fact their tulip exports account for eighty percent of the world's supply just think about that eighty percent of the world's supply of tulips comes from one country the netherlands there is simply no other place on earth where the conditions for growing tulips are even close to being as good as the netherlands i mean no wonder it's the only country with such vast acreage of reclaimed land except for china of course but they use different methods to gain new land but hang on a second if you look closely at these fields you'll see that most of them are covered in grass not flowers and when i first saw that i became quite curious i mean why aren't they growing flowers on all of the fields or maybe another crop that is actually useful instead of plain old grass well i found the reason and it's cheese let me explain you see whilst flowers are certainly the most obvious crop choice for these farmlands there is simply too much land available to grow them on and since the dutch already represent 80 of the world's supply of say tulips the supply would far exceed demand had they grown them on all of their polders which in turn would create incredibly low prices making it unprofitable to grow tulips and flowers for the dutch so something else had to be grown here and as you might remember not that many crops like this type of soil so grass was pretty much the only option but obviously grass can't really be consumed by humans and therefore isn't that desirable to any of us so in order to make use of the grass in a profitable way the dutch put cause here that would be happy to eat it and turn it into milk the only problem is that milk expires quickly and isn't particularly profitable so in order to combat this the dutch began turning the milk into cheese a product that lasts longer and has a higher selling price this is where houda came into the picture a beautiful dutch cheese that is recognized by its sweetness and creaminess all over the world and it quickly became one of the best-selling cheeses making it a highly profitable product for the dutch which is exactly what they were going for so because of the extensive land reclamation the netherlands has done over the years they discovered their two most lucrative export categories dairy products and flowers by necessity and that's truly incredible and it shows the ingenuity of the dutch but the netherlands is home to more than just tulips and cheese let's not forget about dykes lots and lots of dice the dutch take dykes seriously and no wonder they are the only thing that keeps the 65 percent of the land that lies beneath sea level from drowning therefore these dikes are no joke it starts off with a core of sand that then gets covered with a thick layer of clay in order to provide waterproofing and resistance against erosion then a layer of crushed rock below the waterline is added to slow wave action and then all the way from the bottom up to above the waterline the dike is often covered with carefully laid bustled stones or a layer of tarmac it's literally a fortress placed in the ocean in the shape of a line it's insane the lengths they go to in order to protect their land and i haven't even told you the most ridiculous thing about these dykes yet you see the grass that is on top of these dikes is maintained by sheep not humans the reason is that sheep keep the grass dense and most importantly compress the soil while walking around the dyke i mean only the dutch would come up with something as ridiculous as that but hey who am i to judge they've been defeating the ocean now for multiple centuries and i'm still scared of swimming at the beach they know what they're doing and that's especially true when they created this the closure dyke 90 years ago it's insane just look at it it's 32 kilometers long and it turned this massive inlet of the north sea into a freshwater lake but wait hold on a second how did it become a freshwater lake shouldn't it be a saltwater lake considering it was previously part of the ocean well yes under normal circumstances it would stay as a saltwater lake but like egystal as it's called today is connected to a river of the same name and over time this river has repleted the lake with fresh water and if you combine that with the fact that the dutch continuously pump out salt water you will eventually end up with a freshwater lake it's honestly pretty unbelievable and while there are some major environmental concerns by doing something like this the fact is they've protected this area from floodings for almost nine decades now so it's probably fair to say that it was entirely worth it to them especially when you take flevoland into consideration an artificial island that's literally the size of luxembourg more fascinating though is the fact that it didn't exist 35 years ago yet more than 400 thousand people live here imagine living on land that really shouldn't exist i mean it's kind of weird to think about although i'm sure the dutch don't really think about it considering they've dominated the ocean for so long and it's so closely tied to the history even though capital city shows major signs of ocean exploitation do you see all these routes yeah that's canals and all of them were created artificially by the dutch why well it's honestly pretty genius not only could they use it to easily transport goods as well as people to and from amsterdam but also inside of it something that was incredibly valuable in the 15 and 1600s i'm honestly fascinated by all of this and if you want to do some more reading just search delta works on google trust me you'll be in for a treat but that's everything for this video thank you for watching and i'll see you in the next one

Channel: OBF

Views: 2,678,735

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Id: juHf6jUGRPw

Length: 9min 20sec (560 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 09 2021