Netherlands

Geography of Netherlands: Important Geographical Information about Netherlands

Geographically, the Netherlands is a very low country, with half of it rising just about one meter above sea level. This very distinct characteristic is what gave the country its name. Twenty percent of the land mass is below sea level, including twenty-one percent of the areas where the nation’s population resides. Geologists have found out that most of the total land mass of the Netherlands is still under water. Frequent floods ages ago have created the rugged coastline and became irregular even more due to land reclamation, creating very fertile land called polders and the construction of many dikes to keep the entire country from flooding.

The Netherlands is basically a flat country and most of it is formed by the estuary of three rivers, the Rhine and its two distributaries, the Meuse and Waal. These rivers divide it into two major parts, and causing a linguistic barrier within the nation. As a country, the Netherlands is bounded in the east by Germany. Belgium shares borders with the Netherlands in the south while its northern and western parts face the North Sea. It is divided into 12 provinces, with major cities such as Rotterdam, which is the largest port in all of Europe; The Hague which the seat of the nation’s government and residence of the royal family as well as being the Supreme Court of the world and Amsterdam, the nation’s capital, all located in South Holland and North Holland, respectively.

While most of the country is flat, there are some low hills that can be found in the central region and the far southeast parts of Netherlands. It lowest point is the Zuidplaspolder, in the municipality of Zuidplas, located in South Holland. It is seven meters below sea level. Rising at 322, 7 meters above sea level is Vaalserberg or Mount Vaals, the highest point in the Netherlands, located in the Limburg province. If one is talking of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which includes some Caribbean islands, then the highest point will be Mount Scenery, rising to a height of 877 meters in the island of Saba that is now a special municipality of Netherlands after the dissolution of Netherlands Antilles on the 10th of October 2010.

Netherlands has a total land size of 41, 848 square kilometers, and is home to 16,709,440 inhabitants, according to the Statistics Netherlands data as of September 2011. It is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, particularly for those cities that are know tourist destinations. There are large farming areas and the picturesque landscape of old are being overcome by residential communities, causing the lowering of the number of real countryside and their iconic windmills, except for areas like Waterland and Zaan.

Climate
Netherlands enjoys a changeable maritime climate that brings negligible warmth during the summer months and cold winters in varying degrees. But it is good to note that the temperatures in the Netherlands do not reach extreme low and high levels. And snow does not fall too thickly. On the downside is the fact that rain falls regularly throughout the year. On the average, the temperature rises to about 66 °F around July while it can be about 36 °F in January. For the whole year the average temperature reaches 50 °F. Fog is a predominant part of the landscape during the winter season and clouds frequently appear daily. While the minimal sunshine that the country receives is not conducive for the growth of food crops, it is very ideal for raising livestock and for dairy farming.

Floods in the Netherlands
It is worth mentioning that the devastating floods that occurred in the Netherlands ages ago, including the one that happened in 1953 have spurred the Dutch to innovate and create what is considered to be the safest levee systems in the world. That is because the Dutch had to prevent their country from going under water due to its geographical anomaly.

The Dutch took too heart the lessons learned from the major floods that hit the country. In 1134, the now-you-see-now-you-don’t nature of Zeeland, that shows at low tide and disappears when the tide is high was greatly affected by the major storm. Eventually the inhabitants of the area created small hills so that some of the region can be habitable and remain dry when the tides are high. Soon the small hills became interconnected with a series of dikes. In 1827, December 14 to be exact, the storm that happened after the feast day of St. Lucia almost destroyed major parts of Germany and the Netherlands, although it did leave more than 50,000 people dead. Another flood that hit the country happened in 1421, called the St. Elizabeth flood. The last major calamity that occurred in the Netherlands was the flood in February 1953 where over 1,800 people drowned when several dikes collapsed. From then on the government embarked on a large-scale flood control system called the Delta Works. It was started in 1958 and was partially complete by 1997 and completed in 2002. Since most of the flooding occurs in Zeeland and South Holland, the project aimed to reduce the occurrence of major flooding in the area to once every 10,000 years. It involved the construction of higher outer sea dikes for a total length of 3,000 kilometers. The government also constructed 10,000 kilometer long river dikes and inner canals. They also closed the sea estuaries in Zeeland. The full Delta Works plan included the construction of sluices, dikes, levees, locks, storm surge barriers as well as dams. It was a marvel of construction, planning and engineering that the American Society of Civil Engineers called Delta Works as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

:: References ::
http://www.toursnetherlands.com/about-netherlands/geography/
http://www.cbs.nl/en-GB/menu/themas/bevolking/cijfers/extra/bevolkingsteller.htm
http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Europe/Netherlands-CLIMATE.html