Dike and polder
Dique y pólder con drenaje organizado
- Date
- c. 1100 · confidence medium
- Place
- Frisia and Holland (Netherlands)
- Credited to
- Frisian peasant communities; abbeys and the counts of Holland
- Field
- Tools
What it is
A system of dikes, drainage canals and sluices that reclaimed land from the sea and the peat bogs, managed by water boards (waterschappen). The creation of farmland and of institutions for collective management.
The earliest documented waterschappen date from the 13th century (Rijnland, 1255).
What it led to
- Dutch agrarian expansion and the urban density of Flanders and Holland
- the 15th-century drainage mills and the polder landscape
- the Dutch hydraulic tradition and early cooperative institutions
Built on
- European post windmillc. 1180
- terp (artificial dwelling mound)
- European post windmill