A Quarter of the Netherlands Lives Below Sea Level

The Netherlands has been fighting the sea for nearly a thousand years. Today, about 26 percent of the country lies below sea level, protected by an elaborate system of over 10,000 miles of dikes, dunes, and storm barriers. The Dutch have reclaimed so much land from the sea that their country is literally larger now than it was centuries ago. After a catastrophic 1953 flood killed nearly 2,000 people, the Netherlands launched the ambitious Delta Works program, building some of the world’s most sophisticated flood defenses including barriers designed to withstand 1-in-10,000-year storms. The Dutch approach has become a global model, with cities from New York to Jakarta now consulting Dutch engineers on how to live with rising seas.