The Zuiderzee (sometimes spelled Zuyderzée , sometimes called South Sea , which is the literal translation) was a Golfe North of the Netherlands.

At the time Roman, the Lake Flevo, separated from the sea by dunes, occupied most of the surface. At the 13th century, following floods, the sea invades the lake.

The Netherlanders, in their concern of increasing and of making safe their territory, launched at the 19th century, a great project of polders. It will however be necessary to await the vote of the Parliament in 1918, following the terrible floods of 1916, to see concretizing the project of the engineer Cornelis Lely.

The showpiece of the building site, precondition to the draining, is the large dam ( Afsluitdijk ) finished in 1932. It makes 30 km of length and 90 m broad at the capped top of a highway. The polders will be created of 1930 with 1968, one of them has the most important city, Lelystad , thus baptized in the honor of the engineer who conceived the project. The part remained out of water bears the name of IJsselmeer ( Lake IJssel ).

Today, the realization of the last large polder envisaged, the Markerwaard, is stopped.

See too

• Cornelis Lely
• Zuyderzée, a French Department created in 1811
• Afsluitdijk, the dam of closing of the gulf.

Nds-nl: Zuderzee