Afsluitdijk

…building of a dam (Afsluitdijk; completed 1932) separating the IJsselmeer from both the Waddenzee (the northern part of the former Zuiderzee) and the North Sea.

…km) long, known as the Afsluitdijk (“Enclosing Dam”), was built across the Zuiderzee, separating it into the outer Waddenzee (open to the North Sea) and the inner IJsselmeer (Lake IJssel). By the early 1980s four polders, largely agricultural land, had been created through an elaborately constructed system of pumping stations,…

…which the IJsselmeer Dam (Afsluitdijk), begun in 1927, was a part. This 19-mile- (30-km-) long dam was completed in 1932 to finally seal off the Zuiderzee from the Waddenzee and the North Sea. In the IJsselmeer, or IJssel Lake, formed from the southern part of the Zuiderzee, four large…

…the starting point of the Afsluitdijk, the 19-mile (31-km) dam that encloses the IJsselmeer and links Noord-Holland and Friesland. The province, drained by the Zaan, Amstel, and Vecht rivers, is mainly low fenland, with dunes, and sea and river clays. Formed by the division (1840) of Holland into North and…