When you come back from a Holiday and fly over a dark Netherlands, you look out the windows and see those massive light up squares. Those lit greenhouses always give me the feeling of "Yes! I am home again"

As a Dutchman I still learn a lot about my own country.🙂

Flevoland is derived from the Roman name for the bay that used to be there, Lacus Flevo. In the middle ages it was renamed to Aelmere, which the name of Almere comes from.

43:17 Cows can frolic like most other animals, especially when they're let outside, moved to a fresh patch of land or just enjoy each other and/or the weather. I half grew up on my grandparents' farm. 🥰

Shipping is cheap because you can let stuff basically float downriver for free and only need to slowly move stuff up river with the weight of the stuff being very little problem.

An interesting fact is that The Netherlands still has the world's leading university in mining, despite the last of the country's mines closing I believe in the '70s or '80s.

27:19 fyi, an airplane is fastest but also the least efficient way to transport anything. One large container ship can carry the equivalent cargo of over 3,000 standard cargo planes. This is reflected in the price and the reason we only use planes for light, high value goods, perishable goods or in urgent situations. Thus ships move vastly more goods by volume, handling around 90% of global trade by weight/volume, while planes carry a tiny fraction (less than 1%) by volume but a significant chunk of high-value goods (over 35% by value).

If you really want sth else than water, land or air transport you could look into teleportation 😂 ( theorethically possible btw 😋)

31:53 Iconic picture for me. It's the Oude Maas at the dual railway and road bridge between Dordrecht and Zwijndrecht. I grew up and still live less than a km from that site. 🥰

What an intelligent girl /young lady, she is.

so much information its so dense

33:25 Dear Franshesca, oil isn't only to power a car or any other motor..  Your clothing, earplugs, glasses maybe, shoes, boots are made of oilrefinery by products.

About water based defence lines: During the Cold War, the Netherlands still had the "IJssellinie¨ to protect the Randstad against a Russian invasion. The defence line became obsolete in 1964.

I am proud of our country. We all worked hard to make it the way it is now.

We consider it silly to think of Rotterdam being overtaken in port size by Singapore as competition.  Ports are infrastructure, they do not compete with each other if they are long distances away from each other.  If anything, it would be more trouble for us if there weren't equally big ports in South East Asia, because.. well.. you need a port of both sides of a shipping route, and the better facilities on both sides, the easier trade flows.

22:05 you mentioned changing plans, this was another change in plans.  First it was supposed to be a dam. But then environmentalists and fishers protested because of the ecological harm that will cause. (It wouldn’t be salt water anymore). So in the end they constructed this, so it stayed a see arm. It costed a lot more, but everyone was happy with the solution, and we added new kind of construction to our experience list.

A little information about ship transportation of goods (it's not an old thingy :) )

About 80–90% of global trade by volume is transported by ships, while airplanes account for less than 1% by volume, but about 30–35% by value.

Breakdown:
Mode of Transport % of Global Trade (by Volume)     % of Global Trade (by Value)
Shipping (Sea)       ~80–90%                                     ~60–70%
Air (Planes)                <1%                                                     ~30–35%

Why the big difference?
Ships can carry enormous loads (e.g., oil, cars, containers, raw materials) at relatively low cost per ton but are slow.

Planes are much faster and mainly used for high-value, time-sensitive, or perishable goods (e.g., electronics, pharmaceuticals), despite being much more expensive.

pretty crazy how such a small country has such a large impact on the world, other countries look at NL for waterways, bridges, bicycle infrastructure, microchips, DJ's, kickboxers, cheese, tulips and the STROOPWAFELS!!!

I'll bet you would fall in love with the Netherlands. Big by being small !! yup, i'm Dutch and proud ! NYC use to be called New Amsterdam ! And a funny fact , the Dutch are one off the tallest people in the world !

There are more examples besides the Markerwaard where the Dutch changed course while working on a project.
The Oosterschelde dam was originally supposed to completely close that sea branch off, but environmental considerations made us change course.

Proud to be dutch!