Holland!

Particular attention was paid today about Faust's land reclamation and creation of Holland in Act V of Goethe's Faust II. It's pretty crazy stuff, all those canals and Faust's vexation at the ocean.

The Holland thing reminded me of my awesome 6th grade world geography class. I remembered how my teacher went on about how Holland should be underwater. So just now, I Wikipedia-ed Holland, and, sure enough, Holland does have a precarious geography.

Holland had major problems with the ocean breaking through the sand dunes and the major rivers flooding. Most of the area was marsh, and, in the 10th century, people cultivated the land by draining it, which lead to soil sinkage. This soil sinkage put the country at very great risk of catastrophic flooding from the ocean. To avoid making Holland a series of barrier islands, dikes were built to protect against the ocean. In the 16th century, the people of Holland took the offense and began land reclamation projects, in which they turned lakes, marshes and mudflats in polders (low-lying land enclosed by dikes).

And the photo is of two levees in Holland.