Truth in advertising or Dutch feat Twenty-six percent of The Netherlands is below sea level. About 7200 square kilometers (2700 square miles) was once underwater, including lakes and wetlands, and has been drained to create dry land. – netherlandsinsiders.com
You read it first in this week’s The Factory in Guide magazine.
Both! The Netherlands, also known as Holland, is located in northwestern Europe. You know the place, it’s where the people speak Dutch, and you can find rows and rows of beautiful tulips of all different colors! The best time to see them in bloom is late March to Mid-May. If you go in April, you can’t miss!
The country backs up to the North Sea. The northern and western region is called the Low Netherlands. About half the region lies below sea level and used to lie under water. Dutch engineers drained the land using windmills and later water pumps. Barriers such as sand dunes, dykes, and dams keep the water out. These lands reclaimed from the sea are known as polders. That is another thing the Dutch are famous for, their beautiful windmills that help keep the land dry.
If you ever get to travel to The Netherlands, you may not realize that you are below sea level. That’s because hundreds of pumps are working daily to keep the water out. Today more than 1,491 miles (2,400 kilometers) of dikes shield the low, flat land—almost half of which lies below sea level—from the North Sea. Without the existing dikes 65 percent of the country would be flooded daily. The water volume that the Dutch have to drain annually to keep their land dry is an astounding 19 trillion liters of water. That’s 5 trillion gallons of water a year!!!
If you like to ride a bike while you see the sights, you will fit right in! Many of the residents ride bicycles for transportation in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, and other cities. Did you know that there are three times as many bicycles as there are cars in the Netherlands? Very impressive!
There are cute animals there, too! They have hedgehogs, badgers, otters and deer, to name a few. And in 2019 it was cited that a wolf had settled there for the first time in more than 140 years! They think that by now, more have followed.

All in all, Holland is a very impressive country with a very rich history! But there is another Country which is even more impressive. It is called, "the great city, the holy Jerusalem." Rev. 21:10.
It is the New Jerusalem. We are told in Revelation 21 and 22, that the streets are made of pure gold, like transparent glass. It has a great and high wall, with twelve gates, three on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. The construction of its wall is of jasper; and the city is pure gold, like clear glass. And its foundation is made up of all kinds of precious stones including jasper, sapphire, emerald and amethyst. How beautiful this city must be!!
But the best part about this city is that the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb live there. And they have invited us to live there, too! Wouldn't you like to join them? I do!!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version, Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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