Geography of the Netherlands

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The geography of the Netherlands makes the Netherlands one of the most unique countries on Earth. This is due to the fact that much of its land was reclaimed from the sea and is below sea level, protected by dikes.

Contents 1 Landscape 2 Statistics 3 See also 4 External links 4.1 Maps 4.2 Satellite images and aerial photograps 4.3 Miscellaneous

[edit] Landscape

The country can be divided into 2 areas:

• the low and flat lands in the west and north. These lands, including the reclaimed polders and river deltas, make up about half of its surface area and is less than 1 metre (3.3 ft) above sea level, and much of it is actually below sea level. An extensive range of seawalls and coastal dunes protect the Netherlands from the sea, and levees and dikes along the rivers protect against flooding from rivers.
• the higher lands with minor hills in the east and south. Even this portion is mostly flat, only in the extreme south of the country there are some foothills of the Ardennes mountains. This is where Vaalserberg is located, the country's highest point at 322.7 metres (1,053 ft) above sea level.

[edit] Statistics

Geographic coordinates: ca. 51° - 53° N, 4° - 7° E

• 1 degree = 111 km NS, 68 km EW (the ratio is 0.61, the cosine of the latitude)
• 1 minute = 1,850 m NS (ca. 1 nautical mile), 1,140 m EW
• 1 second = 31 m NS, 19 m EW

Also the Dutch RD coordinate system (Rijksdriehoeksmeting) is common, see [1] (pdf, in Dutch; see little map on p.1) and converter. There is a west-east coordinate between 0 and 280 km, and a south-north coordinate between 300 and 620 km.

The reference point is the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwentoren (Our Lady's Tower) in Amersfoort, with RD coordinates (155.000, 463.000) and geographic coordinates ca. 52°9′N, 5°23′E.

Rate of change of solar time: 1 minute per 17 km EW.

Highest altitude of the Sun on a day varies at the center from 38.5 - 23.5 = 15 degrees in December to 38.5 + 23.5 = 62 degrees in June. This occurs, depending on east-west location, at ca. 11:40 UTC, i.e. local time 12:40 in winter and 13:40 in summer.

Map references: Europe

Area:
total: 41,526 km² (16,033 mile²)
land: 33,883 km² (13,082 mile²)
water: 7,643 km² (2951 mile²)

Land boundaries:
total: 1,027 km (638 miles)
border countries:

• Belgium 450 km (280 miles)
• Germany 577 km (359 miles)

Coastline: 451 km (280 miles)

Maritime claims:
exclusive fishing zone: 200 nautical miles (370 km / 230 miles)
territorial sea: 12 nautical miles (22 km / 14 miles)

Climate: temperate; marine; cool summers and mild winters

Terrain: mostly coastal lowland and reclaimed land (polders); some hills in southeast

Elevation extremes:
lowest point: Zuidplaspolder (Nieuwerkerk aan den IJssel) 7 m (23 ft) below sea level.
highest point: Vaalserberg 321 m (1053 ft) above sea level.

Natural resources: natural gas, petroleum, arable land

Land use: (1996 est.)
arable land: 25%
permanent crops: 3%
permanent pastures: 25%
forests and woodland: 8%
other: 39%

Irrigated land (1996 est.): 6,000 km² (2300 miles²)

Natural hazards: flooding by sea and rivers is a constant danger. The extensive system of dikes, dams, and sand dunes protect nearly one-half of the total area from being flooded during the heavy autumn-storms from the north-west.

Environment - current issues: water pollution in the form of heavy metals, organic compounds, and nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates; air pollution from vehicles and refining activities; acid rain

Environment - international agreements:
party to: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Sulphur 85, Air Pollution-Sulphur 94, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Marine Life Conservation, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands, Whaling
signed, but not ratified: Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants, Biodiversity, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol

Geography - note: located at mouths of three major European rivers (Rhine, Maas or Meuse, and Scheldt)

[edit] See also

• List of places in the Netherlands
• Municipalities in the Netherlands
• Extreme points of the Netherlands

[edit] External links

• Netherlands Geography
• Map showing first two digits of postal codes (see List of postal codes in the Netherlands), ditto
• Map showing first three digits of postal codes for the midwest of the Netherlands
• Locate town or village; find municipality it is part of, range of postal codes, and some other basic data
• Find postal code for a full address, and address for full postal code plus street number
• For each municipality a pdf file - with statistics in Dutch, and with (towards the end) a map showing the neighborhoods (together ca. 11,000), and listing (a few pages further) the population figures etc. as well as the grouping into quarters (together ca 2,400)
• Lists of "places" (towns, villages, and various smaller entities), with municipality: alphabetical (ca. 4,800) - by province (extended, ca. 7,000)

[edit] Maps

• Routenet.nl Most used website for maps and directions in the Netherlands, also gives address range for a full postal code, and shows the four-digit parts of the postal codes on the maps. Published by Locatienet BV
• Multimap - shows geographic coordinates and allows a direct link to a map for a given location and with a given zoom level; shows all railways from scale 1:500k, all railway stations from 1:50k
• Vialys
• http://www.map24.nl/index.php?language=en (also used by http://www.lycos.nl/lycos/route/ )
• http://www.routemaster.nl/ ; similar or the same:
  • http://route.anwb.nl/zoek_plattegrond.html
  • http://www.andes.nl/ (select "Interactieve kaart"): the same but one has to know the postal code
  • http://www.travelmanager.nl/nl/contentimap/index.html: ditto
  • maps of public transport planner http://www.9292ov.nl
• http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=NL&zoom=3
  • to link directly to a city: http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=NL&city=, type city at the end of the URL
  • to link directly to a postal code: http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=NL&zipcode=, type four-digit code at the end of the URL
  • to link to given geographic coordinates: latlongtype=decimal&latitude=...&longitude=... - a red star shows the location on the map; in the largest scale one pixel is ca. 1.5 m or from 0.000015 degrees; therefore for the number of degrees up to five decimals can make sense for exact pinpointing (although the star size is 16x16 pixels and not transparent, hence a small map detail and ca. one letter of text may be covered by the star)
  • specify zoom level 0-9: add "&zoom=zoom level" (note that the zoom level in MapQuest's hoverbox have numbers which are one more, the range is 1-10)
• http://de.maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?country=nl
• Michelin
• NS rail travel planner - contains a detailed map of the whole country; to view a location, specify it as destination and choose an arbitrary point of departure, then ask for the route map of the post transport from the train station. Of course the map shows railroads and train stations clearly. If you specify "Public transport" as means of pre or post transport, you will be redirected to http://www.9292ov.nl (see above).
• Yellow pages / Telephone directory - A map (plattegrond) is provided after searching for a company or person; if one just wants to use the map, do an arbitrary search like [2], select Plattegrond and by zooming out and selecting an area to zoom in go to any part of the map.
• Topographical Service map selection tool (can to some extent be used as a map by itself)
• Single png-map (zip)
• See also the links of:
  • http://www.landkaartenindex.nl/nederland/nederland.htm ; includes [3], a list of links to towns maps
  • Detailed town maps of Rijnland/Citoplan (note that on the overview maps, for enlargement one can often either select a box or a town and then a box)
  • Detailed town maps of Falkplan (see at the bottom of that webpage)

For public transport maps see Transportation in the Netherlands#External links.

Beach locations are defined by km-pole numbers, indicated on wooden poles every 250 m. See map (zip-file) with beach from Den Helder to Hoek van Holland, showing these numbers and also public transport info.

[edit] Satellite images and aerial photograps

Google Maps [4] has aerial photographs of the entire country, combined with a full map with town and street names. This is also available through Google Earth.

[edit] Miscellaneous

• Overview of paper atlases
• Historic map 1658