History
Around the year 1000 AD, this area was land. However, several storms after 1100 flooded the land, turning it into a flood plain.
The Wieringmeerpolder is a polder, newly created land, and it is part of the Zuiderzee Works. The creation of this polder started in 1927. Originally the polder would have been created after the completion of the Afsluitdijk, but there was a severe lack of agricultural ground. This meant that the dikes for the polder had to be built in the Zuiderzee, a sea, instead of in the milder lake IJsselmeer that the Zuiderzee would become after the completion of the Afsluitdijk. Therefore the dikes had to be tougher and ready to withstand the sea. Draining of the polder was finished on 21 August 1930.
The new land became usable in 1934. Four villages (Slootdorp (1931), Middenmeer (1933), Wieringerwerf (1936) and Kreileroord (1957)) eventually grew up in the polder.
Since 1 July 1941, the Wieringermeer had been an independent municipality. During the Second World War, The Netherlands were occupied by Nazi Germany and, on 17 April 1945, a vengeful German command ordered the dike of the Wieringermeer to be blown up: the Wieringmeer was inundated. No one was killed as the polder slowly submerged again (the inhabitants had been warned), but the high water and a subsequent storm destroyed most of the infrastructure built in the previous decade. The floodwater was fresh water, so the land did not have to be desalinated again. Reconstruction followed quickly; by the end of 1945, the polder was declared drained again and the rebuilding of roads and bridges, houses and farms, was greatly facilitated by the experience of building them the first time.
Its name means "Wieringen Lake", the name of an inland lake that occupied the area in the early mediaeval period.
Read more about this topic: Wieringermeer
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