What is Zuiderzee Works?
{{no footnotes|date=March 2024}} [[Image:Afsluitdijk 1031.jpg|right|thumb|300px|The {{convert|32|km|mi|1}} long [[Afsluitdijk]] separates the [[IJsselmeer]] from the [[North Sea]], protecting thousands of km² of land. In this image, the North sea is the body of water on the left hand side]] The '''Zuiderzeewerken''' (''Zuiderzee Works'') are a system of [[dam]]s, [[land reclamation]] and [[sewer|water drainage]] works in the [[Netherlands]] during the [[20th century|twentieth century]]. Plans for the works date back to the 1600s, but it was not until a very bad [[flood]] in 1916, that the [[Dutch people|Dutch]] [[parliament]] finally agreed to pay for the works. Now it is one of the [[Seven Wonders of the Modern World]]. First some dams or [[Dike (geology)|dykes]] were built to separate the [[South Sea]] ({{lang-nl|Zuiderzee}}) from the [[North Sea]]. The biggest was the ''[[Afsluitdijk]]'' ('closure dyke'). It is {{convert|32|km|mi|1}} long. When it was finished in 1932, the South Sea was completely cut off and from then on would become a lake called the ''[[IJsselmeer]]''. Land reclamation meant building more dams and pumping out the [[water]] inside. The new land is called a [[polder]]. Polders make new land for [[agriculture]] and make flood protection better, because the lake is smaller. There are gates and sluices at the ends of the Afsluitdijk. The gates, called [[Lock (water transport)|locks]], can be opened to let [[ship]]s through. The sluices let water out of the IJsselmeer. If there were no sluices the lake would fill up and flood the [[countryside]]. This is because it is always being filled with water from rivers and the polders which are still being drained. ==Related pages== * [[Flood]] == References == {{reflist}} * [http://www.waterland.net/nieuwland/indexe.html Nieuw Land Poldermuseum] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020816002505/http://www.waterland.net/nieuwland/indexe.html |date=2002-08-16 }}–A Flevoland museum on the Zuiderzee Works and Dutch water management in genera