Alternate Hollands

As the famous saying goes 'God created the Earth but the Dutch created Holland'.
The entire landscape there is totally sculpted by mankind.

A minor annoyance that has always been noticed here is when people use the modern Dutch coastline on maps for hundreds of years ago. There's been some pretty huge changes to the Netherlands over the years- the Zuiderzee formation, the construction of Flevoland, etc.... in addition to innumerable smaller changes- the construction of new polders and the claiming of new lands.
Of course the zuiderzee flood was entirely natural along with many other changes but so much of it was man made...

So the point.

How could the Netherlands develop differently?
Not the nation. I don't want any Dutch north Americas or that kind of thing here.
The actual land upon which the nation is built.

How big could it become?- Of course Flevoland was going to be bigger but they kept a lot of the dammed off new land as lakes.
What weird and wacky changes could be wrought?
 
In theory - and assuming enough capital on hand - almost every single island off the German North Sea coast could become part of the mainland. Heligoland could not, but it could be enlarged.

Spread Dutch rule through East Frisia and the Marschen, and you could have this. It would, of course, be a perpetual project (the coastline naturally recedes, so it needs strengthening just to keep it in place).
 
How about draining the North Sea between England and the Netherlands to create a land bridge between East Anglia and Holland? That would be an impressive project. Might screw up maritime trade though, what with blocking the English channel:D
 

Susano

Banned
How about draining the North Sea between England and the Netherlands to create a land bridge between East Anglia and Holland? That would be an impressive project. Might screw up maritime trade though, what with blocking the English channel:D

Well, that goes already into the high seas. But Carlton is quite correct that one could theoretically turn the entire Wadden Sea into land, and not only in the Netherlands but also in Germany. The Frisian Islands would then be the mainland coastline.
 
How about draining the North Sea between England and the Netherlands to create a land bridge between East Anglia and Holland? That would be an impressive project. Might screw up maritime trade though, what with blocking the English channel.
Think bigger. These are Dutch water engineers we are talking about. :D

Back in the '30s several schemes were proposed to turn the whole frigging North Sea into a polder.

North Sea Drainage Project

I've seen an even more ambitious design. All the way to Norway.

If population pressure rises high enough it might even make sense.
POD: Antibiotics ca 1800. :D
 
that map has to be a joke.
and all the way to Norway draining the Baltic sea, damn i wonder what the Swedes would say about losing all their coast
 
that map has to be a joke.
and all the way to Norway draining the Baltic sea, damn i wonder what the Swedes would say about losing all their coast

There would have been a dam across the Skagerrak between Denmark and Sweden, with a (very long) channel draining the Baltic into the Atlantic.
And a whole network of interconnecting channels between the seaports, the North Atlantic, the Channel, and the Baltic.

The biggest problem with this plan is it's environmental impact (water tables, weather patterns, etc.), not engineering.
It's pretty straight forward, just big.
 
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still kind of sounds like a joke to me, or at least not a serious plan.

But i do remember once reading about a suggested dam project between the north of sweden and finland. it would be a hell of a lot smaller than the north sea project but but probably not much larger than where they have built the sweden-denmark bridge
 
The history of conquering land started at least in the 15th century. Perhaps most noticeable at this moment is the chaining of islands that now make up the dunes of Holland. These used to be islands, but as the Dutch built dams to connect the islands, the land behind them dried up. The Hondsbossche Zeewering is a perfect example of this. There is no reason to stop at where this process stopped in our timeline, dams could be constructed between most of the islands in the Wadden Sea.

The 17th century saw the famous inpoldering and the so called Gouden Eeuw when Dutch trade dominated the seas. This neatly brings up the most important concern for inpoldering at this time, ships (from the Baltic) need to be able to reach Amsterdam, and this is impossible if you turn the Wadden Sea into land. Amsterdam's current connection to the sea, the Noordzee kanaal, didn't exist until the first half of the 19th century.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Netherlands with a continued conquering land.

GreaterHolland.PNG
 
An interesting note, I actually attempted to make a base map with the Dutch coast circa 900 AD. Needless to say, it was somewhat inaccurate and has yet to catch on.

What about Atlantropa? A dammed Gibraltar and significant coastal increases throughout the Mediterranean Sea. Would that kind of thing qualify?
 
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