De Afsluitdijk: Why The Dutch Built A Motorway In The Sea 

A freaking motorway over the ocean.. and still has a bicycle trail.. I love the Netherlands

Dutch politician: “ok so hear me out, we drain the ocean”

Water: exists Dutch people: *ITS FREE REAL ESTATE*

And the Afsluitdijk road (A7) is the longest straight road of the Netherlands. There is even been a day they closed is for an F1 car to race on it.

Thanks for this video! As a citizen of Leeuwarden, the Afsluitdijk is very normal and I use it quite often. Videos like this one remind me of how exceptional the Afsluitdijk really is. :D

The dijk was not built solely for new polder land, but also to prevent flooding . ( That's why the houses on the island of Marken were built on stilts.) I was in Marken 3 weeks ago, my third visit.

100% truth: In 1997 I interviewed and landed a job with Fortis Audit Service In Milwaukee. There was a team interview portion. They had an auditor on loan from the parent company in The Netherlands. He asked me, “I come from a country in Europe, known for windmills, tulips, and wooden shoes. What’s the country’s name”. I replied, “The Netherlands”. He immediately stated, “HE’S HIRED”! 🤣😂

I rode the cyclepath on the afsluitdijk into a strong headwind many years ago, but remember well still. I thought the ride would never end, it was such hard work.

Its funny seeing my favorite youtuber visit a place where I live like 200 meters from. Now im gonna be constantly reminded of this video.

I'll keep my 10 points and invert the -20 points because there are two Hollands in the Netherlands, the South and North Holland. ;-) Thank you for the video, I spent 11 days of my European vacation in The Netherlands but I never noticed that motorway on the map.

I by chance came across your channel today. I’ve watched several of your videos now. Let’s just say that I’m quite impressed! I miss Europe! I haven’t been since 1985! Very enjoyable videos! Subscribed!! :-)

Loved it! What a piece of engineering! The Dutch are brilliant that way.

Wow, how have I ne er heard of this motorway before, seems like an incredible feat of ingenuity!

Absolutely loved it. I love learning new things.

Thanks very much for introducing beautiful place on earth, excellent road design work done by engineers and designers.

I just realized that we went sailing on the IJsselmeer with school class in the 90s. It was such a nice trip. It was the "Topzeilschoener Vrijheid" from 1920 and we sailed for several days. One day we went out to the North Sea to go to Texel and the North Sea was a total different thing. Rough and windy and high waves, the IJsselmeer was a bathtub compared to it. And we must have obviously crossed that dam. But I have no recollection of it. Sadly. And I remember most of my classmates being seasick nearly the whole trip and only four or five of us could enjoy the trip because we were not seasick. 😃

The Afsluitdijk plans do not provide for a highway, but for an ordinary two-way street and a railway line beneed. Because the railway was not built, this space was used for the dual two-way highway later on. This is how the highway was created.

... next to a bin... ... like many 80 year olds in danger of becoming a bit leaky... 😂 I like your style of commentating! I can’t count the number of times I drove over the Afsluitdijk to go to Friesland for the Friese Hengstenkeuring for instance, from Alphen aan den Rijn in Zuid-Holland, but very often we stopped at the beginning of the dijk in the early morning in Den Oever to go fishing from the end of one of the long piers at high tide on the salty sea side of the dijk. We stayed the whole day and caught mainly flat fish 🎣. Tasting great after frying in the pan later at home. One day we misread the fisherman’s Almanak and found the sea water hadn’t even arrived yet. We sat on the pier for two hours, watching how slowly the water appeared and rose deep enough for fish to come foraging sea worms. Very relaxing days with my boyfriend, his dad and adult brother and sister and sometimes my dad or a friend in the hectic lives we all lead. These days are in the past, but remembered with love.

Great! Ran right across this (N to S), taking nearly 8 hours... absolutely killed me.

Soooooo I'm Dutch and I do allot of biking vacations and in one of them I rode over the Afsluitdijk (In a round around the Netherlands)

I like to point youre attention to another famous dutch scientist, who's name was given to the sluices; de Lorentz sluizen. Hendrik Lorentz, who after his emeritate as a professor was chairman of the "Staatscommissie Zuiderzee" and suggested to use numerical mathematics to predict the movement of the water, which was proven right after the afsluitdijk was completed. Before that he made the fundamentals for Einstein's theory of relativity by linking Maxwell's laws of electromagnetism to light reflection and deflection, and after the experiments of Michelson and Morley, to introduce the term for local time: with the velocity of light c as a constant.

They not only build dijks to make the sea a lake. They also seem to have a fairly unique museum for bottled ships. In Enkhuizen. See Flessenscheepjes Museum.

Ahoy Tim! If you enjoyed yourself on this adventure, you might also like "Wadlopen". Walk to a Dutch island at low tide, then take a restful boat back to the Dutch mainland. Tot ziens from an American!

quite a good goedendag hahahaha, love the G pronounciation tim

I was expecting something like the floating bridge in Seattle.

You missed the point that it is also meant to block flooding by the formerly ruff Zuiderzee (Southsea).

Ive heard that the bay's water had also become desalinated completely. Which is incredible by all means. Can someone please correct me if im wrong?

clicks on random vid, 2 seconds in: hey i know that mill/street * 5 minutes from my home ;-)* Nice vid

2:02 where did they take this all sand and rest from?

The only thing more epic than Afsluitdijk is the bridge where Samurai Jack met the Scotsman.

I liked it Timmy!! Here's a comment for the algorithms

It would be even better if they build a railway alongside the motorway!

good work

did they take soil (material?) from the bottom of the bay and use it to build the dijk? I think that'd be the way to do it... because shifting material from the part you want to drain would increase the amount of water it could hold and reduce the water level inside the bay at the same time as building the protective dijk. those dutch are clever

The only thing of Flevoland existing before the Flevopolders were Urk and Schokland. The Urkers still find themselves Islanders.

You know, sometimes I envy you Brits - you can go to places like Holland and actually enjoy the food there… Greetings from Austria.

Awesome

Negative side of rising sea levels: millions of people are going to lose their houses Positive side of rising sea levels: more potential colonies for the netherlands

the main reaosn for the afsluitdijk is to prevent floodings in that area the secodn reason is the land

Nice journey if you've not done it yet ?

G E K O L O N I S E E R D

The Dutch have always been very clever and built wisely. At least, that's what the stereotype we Australians have of them is.

It's so weird that I view the afsluitdijk as very mundane and normal as a native Dutch guy, but when you think about it it's quite an extraordinary piece of engineering. Thanks for visiting it!

“Like many 80-year olds it’s in danger of becoming a bit leaky” Lol

God created the world, the Dutch created The Netherlands............

All the cities didnt exist. Urk: am I a joke to you

we also built the afsluitdijk because literally everything in the ijsselmeer "bay" was flooding whenever it stormed. this afsluitdijk was mainly made for protection not just because we thought "hey we need a new highway and new land" those where like only small reasons

My great grandfather was actually one of the men who made it!

US: We claim new territory Dutch: We make new territory

Real story.. I one's send a letter to Zurich in Frysland, the Netherlands. The letter went from Zurich (Switserland) back to Zurich Netherlands). Took 14 days 🤣😂

hmm let's click on this youtube vid might be cool. And then I see myself cycling at 0:54, small world after all.

The Dutch are incredible engineers. Most people here in the south east of the U.K are completely unaware that it was Dutch engineers, who were brought over in the 17th century, who created many of our sea defences and sea walls. They even built the embankments of the Thames.

The dutch were like : tief een eind op water

This is the first time I've seen a PROPER fact video with no cliché's and what have you. Also thanks for not just visiting Amsterdam, but a regular city like Leeuwarden as well.

Goed verhaal, lekker kort

As a Dutchman i’ve not even been on the Afsluitdijk.. bucket list thing in my own country lol

The IJsselmeer used to be called the Zuiderzee. Before the Afsluitdijk, the niet current lake, was actually a sea...with tides and all. The Afsluitdijk was also built to protect coastal towns from flooding.

The Dutch are good at big stuff. When an oil tanker is stricken , it is usually Dutch contractors who are called in to rescue it.

My recommendations: here is a six month old video for you to watch Me: ah shit here we go again The six month old video: doesn't disappoint

On 1:55 you call the sea on the left 'the Northsea',but it's actually called 'the Waddensea',behind the Islands it's the Northsea..Still very good video!

"Standing majestically looking out over the waves... next to a bin." lmao xD

I've changed this comment so you don't know why I got 500+ likes

One day Dutch will probably reclaim Doggerland.

On your trip, you passed the Lorentz sluizen ( briefly shown in the video on your right while passing) . These sluices are used to drain the IJsselmeer from rising waterlevels as some rivers flow into the IJsselmeer causing this rise. This is done almost every day ( except in hot summers) on low tide of the Northsea preventing salt water coming in. During very hot and dry summers, like this year and last year, the IJsselmeer serves as a source of water for the surrounding polders allowing water to come in though preventing them from drying out. And of course as source of drinking water for the province of Northern Holland ( Holland actually is an ancient name for only the western part of the Netherlands and nowadays refers to only 2 of the 12 dutch provinces , namely Northern Holland and Southern Holland ).

I actually live in Zurich. Really fun to see everything i drive along every single day.

Poor Lely. Comes up with a great idea and ends up with Lelystad named after him - a city known to many as Lelijkstad "ugly city".

I am sitting on an exercise bike this morning from California surrounded by fire, smoke and Covid. These videos are literally the only thing keeping me together. Thank you for making them.

G E K O L O N I S E E R D

10 points to you .. and -20 points because this actually is Holland 🤣🤣🤣

I had to take this bus every day for three years, i hate it

The dutch, born in or on the water. Watermanagement runs through their veins.

And of course there is a bike path

Beautiful to see. Thank you, from the U.S.A. The ingenuity of man never ceases to overcome.

I remember very well a school trip we had to Holland in 1958 when we stayed in Noordwijk-aan-zee. One of the daily outings was a coach trip across the Afsluitdijk as we circled the former Zuider Zee. It was always amazing at the Dutch ingenuity of fighting the sea. Another project that we were shown was the beginning of the Scheldte Delta Project which to me was an even greater ambitious project. For the rest of my life I have always been interested in the engineering skills of the Dutch people to keep them safe from losing all their land.

Nice video! You missed only one interesting fact (that I could think of), which is that when they created new land (polders) they reduced the number of Dutch islands by one. The village Urk used to be an island, but now only half the ex-island borders with water. Edit: I found someone else mentioning the same, and someone adding that there was a second tiny island that met the same fate: Schokland. Which, according to Wikipedia, was "an elongated strip of peat land".

Thumbs up for the good attempt to say stuff in Dutch. Although I can still hear you don't speak it natively you came very very close, and that's more than I can say for many other videos about the Netherlands. Nice trick about Alkmaar being in Holland in context of Holland only being a part of the Nethelands, I almost fell for it! But you gotta remember that I'm always annoyed by people not caring about the difference between Holland and the Netherlands. Never known there was a bus going over the Afsluitdijk... Then again, I live close to the Belgian border, so I live pretty far from that place. I've been on the Afsluitdijk myself only once during my entire life... 🤣

As they say, “buy land, they’re not making any more of it”. . . unless you’re Dutch😉

The Dutch are reclamation experts and have helped projects globally, huge respect to their engineering techniques.

Hi, one thing. It is actually called IJsselmeer (Lake IJssel) on the left and the Waddenzee (Wadden Sea) to the right and NOT North Sea once you are on the Afsluitdijk.

I cycled over that on the way to Copenhagen....I don't recommend it in a head wind.

Urk already existed before the afsluitdijk, because it was an Island

Dont set your expectations to high. Its a pretty boring road xD. But its nice to stop at that parkingplace and feel the breeze and just chill a bit.

I think the Dutch are the best builders in the world. You just have to see their infrastructure, it's unique and wonderful.

That food is even more overpriced than McDonald's

Hippity hoppity this comment section is now G E K O L O N I S E E R D

As a Dutch person this was a great watch and very informative! I live relatively close to Leeuwarden and had no clue there's a bus that went over De Afsluitdijk!

there's actually another road like this between lelystad and enkhuizen and it's quite a bit thinner, which is why i like going over that one more haha

To show Dominance over the other county's off course!

Tim, you deserve all the attention your channel has garnered you in the last year. Here's to an expansive 2020!

What a wonderful and informational video, yet again! Keep on doing what you're doing! I'm looking forward to your next video!

In October 1983, my late father drove my family across the Afsluitdijk, from Haarlem where we ate lunch after visiting the Madurodam in The Hague, to Leeuwarden where we stayed for the night. We picked up our then-new 1984 Volkswagen Scirocco from the Karmann Factory, drove it in a kind of clockwise direction through France, south England and eventually to Emden, Germany, and the Netherlands was along the way. I was only 11 and had to sit in the back seat.

Ive been with the scouts to de Aflsuitdijk by Sailboat.

Ach der Abschlussdeich oder was, der das Eijssellmeer begrenzt? Cooles Ding, Grüße aus Deutschland

Productivity. Is that the official word for it? :D Absolutely love your sense of humour. Two likes from me.

Not to be pedantic, but the former province of "Holland" (now Noord-Hollland and Zuid-Holland) used to be part of Friesland. And (in short) the Afsluitdijk recaptured lost land from "the sea", land that was lost during a major flood that created two regions (basicly Friesland and Holland). So here in Zuid-Holland (near The Hague even) the real locals are in fact Frisian! Oh and you know why ancient Holland was split into two provinces? That was simple political power that was to great for this small country.

You should make a video about the Oosterscheldenkering or Maeslantkering, both a massive storm surge barriers. The Maeslantkering is one of the largest moving structures on Earth and the Oosterscheldenkering is a 9km storm surge barrier sometimes referred to as the 8th Wonder of the World.

I'm from Belgium and speak Dutch. I just want to complement you on your pronunciation of Dutch word!

My grandfather build the afsluitdijk:)

I've ridden this road several times. It's a tremendous engineering feat. Or maybe it's just many feet of tremendous engineering.