The Water System of The Netherlands

As a child, most everyone heard the legend of the Dutch boy who stuck his finger in the dike to save his country! (As portrayed by this life-size model below, seen as you enter the Madurodam grounds.)

While this story of the finger-in-a-dike methodology is only just that, a story, the fact is that half of the Netherlands is nearly or entirely below sea level, and for more than a thousand years, a series of man-made dikes along the coast have protected the country from the sea. So it is an understatement that dikes and water have indeed played a major part in the history of the Netherlands. There’s a saying here: “God created the world. The Dutch created the Netherlands.”

Windmills were originally developed so as to be able to pump excess water from the fields to the canals, where it would then make its way to the sea. Since it was difficult to grow crops on such fields, instead cows were grazed, milk produced, and cheeses made.

Nowadays, such pumping is handled by powerful pumping stations, such as the Madurodam replica shown above, that have allowed The Netherlands to become an agricultural powerhouse, in part thanks to about 1600 pumping stations nationwide that contribute to making this whole water system work.

Along these lines, this educational model above offers a simple illustration as to how dikes work, something that may at first be baffling to a newcomer to Holland, who observes the water flowing by several meters ABOVE neighborhoods of houses adjacent to the canal!

The people of The Netherlands and their canals have worked hand-in-hand for centuries. Above is a replica of a “floating auction” (now a museum), which boats would enter laden with vegetables and other agricultural products and offer these to the buyers on each side. In addition to the ongoing use of canals, shipping and transportation are nowadays also absorbed by a series of highways. Below is an example of hoistable bridges found throughout every community in the country. In the first Madurodam replica, the automated bridge is lifted at intervals, allowing boats to pass through the canal.

And below, the same bridge now lowered, allowing vehicles to pass over the roadway.

Another example of the engineers of Netherlands conquering water is the Delta Works, portrayed by this automated Madurodam replica below. We visited the original Delta Works in November 2023, and found it quite spectacular!