Apologies for the pronunciations in this one - I tried my best but it turns out Dutch is bloody difficult!

Climate scientists: "The sea levels will rise and swallow low lying countries." The Dutch: "Hold my joint"

As a Dutchman i was about to make fun of all the name pronunciations and then he goes on to pronounce Gouda correctly...

As a Dutch person, you’ve taught me more about my country then I’ve learned in school all those years

Fun fact: tulips have been initially gifted and introduced to the Dutch by the Ottomans, it is not a native flower which makes it more impressive

When you said skiephol I almost choked! I am Frisian (north of the Netherlands) and we have our own language. Skiephol litterally translates to sheepsbutt.

I clicked on this video with this thought: "wait wth is happening in my country right now, so amazing that @Thoughty2 would make a video about it?" It turned out to be another video about our watermanagement. Not gonna lie, as a Dutchie I have watched maybe 30 of these kinds of videos, and I still enjoyed it lol. I watched every minute of it.

As a Dutchy I would like to explain why we make land out of the sea. When belgium and luxembourgh were still ours we asked France for more land , they said "NON!" we asked germany for more land they said "NEIN!" That only left the sea , so we asked the sea for extra land and we didn't hear a no.

"...so they designed a dam so damning it would doom the sea to eternal damnation." Absolutely love that line!! 😂

As a Dutch water management engineer from South-Holland, this video makes me feel proud!

Fun fact: It was in the 16th century that tulips were imported to Holland from the Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey). Just a few years after arriving in Holland, tulips became the most sought-after commodity in the entire Netherlands.

Makes it more baffling that the ND politicians want to undo farming and spit on their rich history.

“How the Dutch Defeated the Ocean” was the original title 😅

As a Dutch civil engineer I'm beaming with pride right now, even though I ended up in a totally different field.

The 14th century 'wooden platform with an iron blade' wouldn't let you 'spin around like a prat in public'. The way they're constructed would let you go straight ahead or around curves, but they're very very different from ice hockey / ice dancing skates. They are still produced as 'Friese doorlopers' - 'Friesian walk-ons'. I learned to skate on them as a child.

We can also divert water all the way from the IJsselmeer to the higher (above sealevel) agricultural areas. We just let the pumps turn the other way, so instead of pumping water out, we pump water in. We can't use seawater, but IJsselmeer water has lost enough salinity to work in dry summers. It's not only the polders created on former seabed that's nutritious, also the lands alongside rivers that used to (and in some cases still do) flood at high river water levels is fertile. In other areas there used to be swamps, which were drained, then peat was mined until it was all gone and again there would be (ancient) seabed or riverbed clay available for farming. However in South Holland especially they never dug the peat out - they're grazing cows and sheep on thin layers of soil growing grass, on top of peat layers. Buildings are piled and when the water is drained or the summer is dry, the peat starts to contract, causing the pilings to shift or even rot (they are preserved because they're below the general water table). Some of the dikes are so called peat-dikes, especially around long canals dug through the landscape to connect different cities and ports in the 1800's and earlier. When the waterlevel in these canal is raised by excessive rain, it permeates the peat in the upper layers of the dikes. This can hold for a number of days. If the water level in the canals stays too high for too long, the dike will become waterlogged and start seeping water. That will eventually wash out enough material for the dike to breach. Both too dry and too wet situations are happening more and more as in the inlands of Europe, the sources of our river system, there's more and more rain falling and less and less snow. Snow melt in spring would mean a gradual influx of water. Now every time north-western mainland Europe gets torrential rain, we need to get pumping like crazy in order to keep our feet dry. If you look at the map of Switserland, Germany and Belgium you'll notice that most of the rivers drain to the North Sea through The Netherlands. P.s. Maaslandkering was used for the first time outside testing last December. We had lots of areas with already high water in the inland areas due to rain, and the prevailing wind off the North Sea plus high tide would mean too high water tables. So the floating bits came out autonomously until the high water risk had passed, and then retracted. I think it was the first time ever that all the storm surge protection barriers, along the entire Dutch coast, were used within the same 24 hr period.

"More windmills than you could shake a stroopwafel at." I, as a Dutch person love that line

As a dutchman myself watching this video, this makes me so godDAMn proud!

Not trying to flex or anything but that’s my country

Love the videos mate. I’m a long time subscriber in Victoria Australia, and am constantly fascinated by your interesting and really well researched content. Keep up the good work mate.

Don't forget the terps (terpen), man made hills used to keep our churches, farm houses, store houses and communities dry during floods. The city i live in is built on 3 big terps over 800 years old, they were expanded over time and eventually interconnected. There is one street with 17th century buildings that were made too tall for the terp to support causing the buildings to start sinking, combined with a street level that kept rising due to a build up of trash, the first floor of these building have been almost completely underground for the last century and they just moved the entrance up a floor.

The way they've tamed the sea and utilized it to their advantage is nothing short of remarkable. It's fascinating how the battles with flooding have shaped not just their landscapes but their culture and politics too.

6:43 is a painting of the beautiful city of Deventer and the river IJssel. You can see the big St Lebuïn cathedral with the big tower right in the middle and to the left of it is the St Nicholas church with the two towers. These days the river still overflows, even though they had a project called 'room for the river' (ruimte voor de rivier). And part of it was digging these huge reservoirs next to the river in different places that when high waters came, the water wouldn't flow directly into parts of the city. Quite interesting. Also, we Dutch must continue to improve our defenses against the water and think of new possibillities so these project are an ongoing thing.

Very interesting, educational and entertaining! ..Newly subscribed, thank you for your beautifully integrated productions.

No Dutch water-engineer is sitting back relaxed believing that we have already defeated the ocean (original title). They are well aware that it remains an uphill battle, a few flood-disasters made sure of that.

Old saying, " God made the Dutch, the Dutch made the Netherlands ". 10/10

This was very interesting! Thank you for sharing!!

Wow! I knew absolutely none of this. Amazing. Thank you.

Since 1994/1995 new Delta works have been needed. As we had protected our sea-shores, we were faced with flooding coming from exactly the other direction, down the rivers Rijn and Maas. It teetered on the brink or widescale flooding and disaster but we escaped with minor flooding, still impacting the people involved greatly. The inland dykes and dams were being re-evaluated and for the first time, we considered surrendering land to the water in order to maintain our safety from it. Where I grew up and live, high water levels were and are nothing we get excited about. Until 1995 when a quarter of a million people and 1 million animals had to evacuate. In the end, we had to be away for only about a week, but had it gone wrong, huge areas had been flooded for who knows how long. You can't just put a cork in the Rijn or Maas. But, we also have another water related problem since a couple of years, extreme drought. The balance between high water and extreme drought is completely out of whack. Melting snow in the Alps cause higher water levels, extreme high temperatures cause unprecedented droughts, which makes water management extra complicated.

I’m glad there are people like you out there repeating and educating about this sort of thing. This was common knowledge for every teenager in the 80s and 90s. Everyone knew this. And there was no Internet.

As someone who has been following this channel for 7 years or so, it is nice to see this adressed. Actually my home town/island was the place with the most casualties of the 1953 flood.

I lived and worked in Holland in the mid 90's near Almelo. The people, culture, it was fantastic. I had a chance to stay permanently, I should have done so

Large parts of the Netherlands may have been reclaimed from the sea, but not after making these same parts vulnerable to flooding at an earlier stage. In fact, one thousand years ago large parts of the country were still covered by extensive peat bogs that were bit by bit drained to allow for agriculture. This drainage caused the peat bogs to dry out and disappear and these lands were subsequently swallowed by the sea as the ground level sunk dramatically. This is the real story of Schiphol and the Haarlemmermeer that was still a huge peat bog well into the Middle Ages.

That's actually quite interesting because the Dutch built Capetown city in south Africa in the same way, the castle was built on the edge of the shoreline and now the castle stands far from the ocean in the middle of the city...

I never would have sought out this particular topic on my own but I'm so glad I came across it and decided to watch it because I enjoy Thoughty2's videos.

Great story, combination of information, history, and entertainment. I subscribed.

I only just now realized his iconic moustache is missing and I have no idea when it disappeared...

Please dont advertise our country this well, we already have too many people and little houses🤣

Great production. Thank you.

Very informative and interesting. Thanks for putting this together in a rather humorous fashion.

I love The Netherlands. I love your festivals, the landscape with the mills, the mushrooms and the best coffee I've ever had was in Alkmaar in a bar somewhere, hidden.

Two things to note: -Understandable pronunciations (well done!) -Extremely well researched -(side note) Very appropriate visuals to the subjects (geat aerial shots!) I didn't expect you to include, let alone SHOW, the Waterloopbos. Just as a footnote, it used to be the Waterlooplab (laboratorium) nowadays its a public park (or -bos ;) ) hence the name.

“This Airport used to be under water”😮 …they had pretty tough planes back then!

Wonderful and informative video. Now I definitely want to visit the Netherlands! Keep up the good work Thoughty2. Love all the way from Kenya.

For a video about the Netherlands, this is incredibly well researched and explained. Kudos!

As a Dutch i am proud of my country and what we have achieved along the way. As a small country we have a big impact in the world. And that is very nice to see. We still did not conquer the waters because a disaster is always on the lure. But we do what we can to maintain our lifestyle.

I am Dutch and live at the dam but you teached me more than I knew and I like the way you bring it. Nicely done mate💪🏼. I will follow your channel

I enjoy your stuff. Subscibed. keep it up!

Fun fact, before the Dutch started making dikes they made terps. These were human made hills in the middle of the land to prevent their houses from getting flooded by the sea. The oldest terp was made around 500 BC and is 9 meters tall.

From Gouda😊 the Netherlands 🇳🇱: outstanding docu! Well done and meticulously researched and underscored with images, films erc. Respect❤. Met hartelijke groeten!

Hi from the Netherlands, Thank you for this video under 20 minutes and provides the information that it used to take so many lessons at school, this is 100 times better, maybe you could have mentioned that the king graduated in water management, no, this is not a joke. I'm going to watch more videos from your channel right away.

I had a good time listening to your pronunciation of our language. Just one small remark. We would never have been able to pay for the Delta werken without the natural gas recourses we have. Building this water infrastructure was extremely expensive. Greetings from The Netherlands!

As a Dutchman, Thank you for your enthousiasm and research. 👍

Impressive. As a citizen of the US in the Great state of Texas living residing in the 4th Largest City Houston, the Dutch are 3 steps above us! Mad respect for anyone who lives along the North sea and props to "taming" it. Most think living along the Gulf Coast as i do and dealing with hurricanes like Harvey/Katrina in the laat 18yrs is crazy. The Dutch live along the wildest seas on the planet😮❤ 👏👏👏😊

Thank you so much. All the way from suriname, never knew all this dutch history

That was great information! Thanks

It's really nice when you find a YT channel and there are an absolute shitetonne of videos to discover. And you can learn something along the way. Thanks.

The Dutch also had a hand in the history of canal construction in Colombo, Sri Lanka. 3-cheers to the Dutch.

Thank very much for the information. I didn’t like school when I was young…. now I’m old and it my last chance to learn more of the world thru people like you. I deeply appreciate your work & channel.

Excellent video Thoughty. Thanks for your hard work and dry humour

I was so excited to watch this video as I am Dutch. You made our history sound so interesting. Thank you

The VOC wasn't just the biggest sea fairing company in history. It was the biggest company in history, period.

Thanks 4 all of your great presentations

I enjoy your videos very much. Perfect to listen to while I am working. A nice reprieve from the stories of murder. Thank you from Canada.

As a Dutchman, I was aware of this, but I still learned something from you, the wind wall, I have often sailed past it but never understood it, thank you!!

"Something wierd is happening in the Netherlands"? That doesn't sound interesting I thought but it's Thoughty2 so I'll give it a chance. Wow! Mind blowing! Excellent work! Hooked from beginning to end.

Awesome that you've mentioned Rozenburg. I grew up there. 😁 the Delta works were always so normal to me, but it's all actually pretty fascinating.

I just wanted to say thank you to Thoughty2, this video was fascinating, entertaining, and good fun to watch! 🤩

WOW!! I’ve learned sooo much about the Netherlands in just 21 mins!! Thank you Thoughty2! That was sooo perfectly put together! 😊

19:18 I've actually heard of tulip mania before. It's so wild the "value" we assign to things essentially outta nowhere and everyone, or most, agree, accept, and go along with it.

As always: Wonderful video! ThankYou for your efforts.

thanks mate. I'm a Dutchie living in the UK (my mates think I'm more English than Dutch 😘) and as such, I am missing quite a lot of what is going on in The Netherlands. But this summary of water management (all of which I was tought at school of course) was truly wonderful and made me feel great. Thank you very much!

as a dutch person, i can confirm we pronounce the intro as "skieppool airport"

I can't help but love topics I'd otherwise glance over and go "meh" about when you make a video about it. If I came across a video titled "the marvel of dutch waterworks engineering," I'd likely totally pass it up. Then you come along and make this, and I'm like, "man, these guys were geniuses! This is awesome!"

I'm Italian, lived in The Netherlands for 10 years. My city/province is the flattest and lowest of Italy. 2/3rd of Ferrara "ligt onder de zeespiegel", is below sea level. We started reclaiming land from the sea in the 14th century. When I arrived in the Netherlands I felt home! Gezellig! ❤

This is an awesome video!! I've seen plenty of docs that point out various engineering feats, but not go too in-depth about it. I love the geeky stuff!! It helps me to appreciate and admire the Dutch's hydrofluency even more!!

I visited some of the larger dam/dyke projects back in the 1980s and they are *IMPRESSIVE* up close -- it's one thing to see a long road with water on either side from a drone, it's another to drive and drive and drive and... The Netherlands is also the only place where, while driving along a road, I found myself lookup UP at a barge on a parallel canal.

I'm from Louisiana and most of my state is below sea level except where I am in North Louisiana, my property is the second highest and sometimes the highest elevation in the state, it depends on where you get the information. It's nicknamed Seven Mile Hill.

Very well done! One of your best videos; kudos

You are an excellent storyteller. The way you use your voice and choice of words keep the story interesting. Thank you.

0:45 That's crazy, to the left of this frame is a school that I went to. We used to have PE outside sometimes and I remember running in circles from that one bridge in the distance all way down to the one in the bottom right, then crossing it and going back along the other side of the canal. I vividly recall running 2 full laps without stopping and was so proud, because I don't run and those who did couldn't hang. Anyway, the school teaches a bunch of different fun practical things, Including videography. I know that they also love to play around with new trendy stuff, like drones when they came out. So, there is a chance that this shot was filmed by a student. I don't know for sure, because those windmills are a landmark of sorts, but it could be.

How many dam times can this dam man say dam in this one dam video like dam dude that's dam impressive.

Around 1600 Cornelis Corneliszoon van Uitgeest invented the crankshaft (kruk-as) transforming the rotating movement of the windmill into a linear movement. One of the first applications was the sawmill (zaagmolen) making it possible to saw 30 meter lang trees in wooden boards for the shipbuilders in the Zaanstreek approximately 30 times faster than sawing by hand. This fact is the most important reason the Dutch outsmarted the rest of the world. When ALL trees of around 30 meters were gone in de German Black Woods (Zwarte Woud) we switched to Norwegian wood making us vulnerable to British blockades.

Such a cool educational video, thoroughly enjoyed the watch. Thank you

Yo I live in the Netherlands and you seriously learned me some things I never knew. This is awesome!! You're a great teacher!!! Thanks for sharing this. I live in the Haarlemmermeer area.

Id never have read or watch a documentary regarding the same topic, thoughty2 is a master in education, youre the best teacher imo, i could listen to your seminars all day long

Perhaps the Dutch should go solve the issues over in Venice. They spent billions of dollars to keep the water out, and it doesn't work.

That damn video made me chuckle. There's is something about the presentation that can't be found elsewhere. Amazingly done, as usual, Thoughty2!

that "dam" joke got me freaking rolling lmao. that was good

Btw if anyone passes through Rotterdam, the floating farm also sells their cheese and milkdrinks in a small shop next to the farm and its yummy stuff

I visited the Netherlands, Rotterdam, this summer and found it beautiful. Thank you for a very interesting film.

Amsterdam is way too high 🍁💨 to be underwater!

Dutch guy here. Thanks for the video, learned something new today. Waterloopbos ! Will definitely visit

Thanks. Very very complete and clever exposé...

The tulip bubble is extremely interesting. Not sure if it was thoughty2 or another channel but I watched a great video about it a while back

Arron, of all your programs I have greatly enjoyed, this one is so much the finest that I placed it in my public file, "Enjoyed These", so others may be enthralled by it also; like coming across a sparkling treasure. Thank you for all you share Dear and most especially this truly marvelous gem🥰

There's no way the netherlands was beefing with the ocean 💀

very wel done! had a good laugh and apreciate you using the dutch names! thnx from a dutchy!

You have a great voice for this work. Cheers!

I genuinely don’t understand why the Nederland government is seemingly hell-bent on crippling farming when the land is the best for it.