Zuiderzee

The Zuiderzee was a broad inlet of the North Sea surrounded by the low shores of Holland and Friesland. Its waters gave ships access to towns around the inlet, including Amsterdam, while fishing communities worked the shallows and islands within it. The sea had grown from an earlier lake as floods breached the peatlands and opened the way to salt water. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries further storm surges drowned much of the peatland to the northeast, leaving remnants such as Urk and Schokland above the water.