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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?