Finding Space for a Growing Population: The Case of the Netherlands

What can a country do when it has a growing population, but very little space for its towns and cities to spread out? This has long been the situation in the Netherlands, one of the most densely populated countries in the world. The Netherlands measures only 41,000 square kilometers, and today, has a population of around 18 million. Land has always been a problem for the Dutch; quite simply, they did not have enough. One solution was to take land back from the sea. The Dutch understood this as early as a thousand years ago, when they started the process of reclaiming land from the sea. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), “The outstanding contribution made by the people of the Netherlands to the technology of handling water is admirably demonstrated by the installations in the Kinderdijk-Elshout area.”

The community of Kinderdijk-Elshout is a suburb of the large industrial city of Rotterdam. A thousand years ago, however, this was a wet area, lying between the North Sea and a series of important rivers. The area was only visited by fishermen and hunters if the water level was low enough. However, the local people knew that the rich land would be good for farming. Communities were established, but all houses were built on higher land. They were protected only with dikes, or walls, which didn’t offer enough protection. On one terrible night in 1421, the dikes were washed away in a storm, causing the loss of thousands of people. The Dutch needed a more complex system of water management, one which would remove water from the new land and send it away from towns to nearby rivers.

Using a complex engineering system, the Dutch drained the land of water. In the 1700s, a collection of 19 windmills were built. Windmills have long been associated with this low-lying country, but they are more than just a pretty sight for artists to paint: they are a way to help keep the people of the Netherlands safe. Windmills would provide the power to operate the water pumps, which carried water away from residential areas and kept people safe. Today, more advanced systems of water management have been developed to replace the Kinderdijk-Elshout windmills, and the site is largely a tourist attraction. Visitors to the site will find that the buildings are largely unchanged since the 1700s. However, while the site’s main purpose today is to educate tourists, the windmills have been maintained, and they can be used to support the modern technology where necessary.

When much of your country is below sea level, you can’t be too careful. Today, around two thirds of the residents of the Netherlands live below sea level. The largest city, Amsterdam, has a huge concentration of people living nearly two meters below sea level. The country’s main international airport, Schipol, is about four and a half meters below sea level. If the water management system stopped working, it is estimated that 26% of the Netherlands would be flooded. The windmills of Kinderdijk-Elshout are just one example of the water management engineering that the Netherlands is famous for, and they are one reason why the people of the Netherlands have a global reputation as experts in reclaiming land to deal with the country’s population growth. The Kinderdijk-Elshout site was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. According to UNESCO, “It is nationally and internationally the only example on this scale, making it a unique and outstanding example of an architectural ensemble as well as a cultural landscape which typifies the Netherlands and illustrates a significant stage in human history.”

1.What problem has the Netherlands always faced?