Wadden Sea

The Wadden Sea stretches along the low North Sea coast behind a chain of barrier islands. Twice each day the tide exposes broad flats of mud and sand, leaving winding channels between islands and mainland. Marshes and embanked land border its southern shores. Storm floods repeatedly changed this coast: settlements and fields could disappear beneath the water even as communities built dikes and reclaimed ground. The Christmas Flood of 1717 was among the destructive surges that struck the Wadden coast and its inhabitants.