Lake Flevo 500 BC. 50 AD. In classical times the body of water at this location was called Lake Flevo (Flevo Lacus This was the central and largest lake in a region filled with a mixture of lowland and freshwater lakes occupying the area later filled by the Zuiderzee. It was separated from the sea by a belt of
marsh and
fen; at that time, the coastline ran along the line of the
Frisian Islands. A number of streams, including the
Vecht,
Eem, and
Ysel, fed into the lake. The lake itself fed out into the North Sea through the
Vlie (). It existed in Roman times and the
early Middle Ages. From the Indo-European root
*plew- "flow", the name was transmitted by the Roman geographer
Pomponius Mela in describing this region. In his treatise on geography of 44 AD, Pomponius speaks of a . He writes: "The northern branch of the Rhine widens as Lake Flevo, and encloses an island of the same name, and then as a normal river flows to the sea". Other sources rather speak of
Flevum, which could be related to today's
Vlie (Vliestroom), i.e. the seaway between the Dutch islands of
Vlieland and Terschelling. This last name is grammatically more probable for a geographical indication, which is why it is assumed that Pomponius confused the declension of the word giving the name Flevo. In fact the Vlie formed outfall from the lake into the
North Sea. In the second half of the twentieth century the
Flevopolders and a new province,
Flevoland, took the name of the body of water which lay there long ago. Over time these lakes gradually eroded their soft
peat shores and spread (a process known as
waterwolf). Some part of this area of water was later called the
Vlie; it probably flowed into the sea through what is now the
Vliestroom channel between the islands of
Vlieland and
Terschelling. The disaster marked the rise of
Amsterdam on the southwestern end of the bay, since traders from the
Hanseatic cities could now reach the area.
Zuiderzee The formation of the Zuiderzee was a gradual process, influenced by several storm surges in 1163/64, 1170, 1173, and especially the of 1196, which completed much of what the earlier floods had set in motion.
Zuiderzee Works in the Netherlands The construction between 1927 and 1932 of a 19-mile long dam (the
Afsluitdijk), under plans originating from
Cornelius Lely, enclosed the Zuiderzee. The creation of this dam was hastened by the
Flood of January 1916. Plans for closing the Zuiderzee had been made over thirty years earlier but had not yet passed in
parliament. With the completion of the Afsluitdijk in 1932, the Zuiderzee became the
IJsselmeer, and the outer portion of the Zuiderzee became the
Wadden Sea. Large areas of land, mainly for agricultural use, were subsequently reclaimed from the water through the construction of
polders with dams, pumping, and other hydrological technology. Four had been built by the early 1980s. They were the Wieringermeer Polder built in 1930; the Northeast (Noordoost) Polder, built in 1942; the East (Oostelijk) Flevoland Polder, built in 1957; and the South (Zuidelijk) Flevoland Polder, completed in 1968. A fifth,
Markerwaard, began construction in 1963, and became partially complete, but was abandoned in the mid-1980s. ==Geography==