In the past, floods in the Netherlands occurred much more frequently. Herewith, sometimes thousands of people died.
To protect themselves from the sea, people began to build refuges; the so called ‘vlietbergen’ or ‘terpen’ mounds. As the size of these mounds started to grow, small villages were built on top these hills. To connect the villages, people constructed small levees between them, through what polders arose.
Thanks to the construction of levees and wind driven mills to keep the polders dry, the Netherlands grew larger, piece by piece.