Before the great land reclamations of the Middle Ages, peat bogs covered much of the Netherlands. The country was transformed in the 10th and 11th centuries, from 70 per cent natural land to 70 per cent cultivated land. Since then the population has reclaimed hundreds of lakes and ponds, dug new waterways, built industrial zones and consolidated agricultural land. In other parts of the world, too, especially colonised territories, the Dutch made major modifications to the landscape for their own benefit. Examples include the development of plantations in Suriname and Indonesia, which involved converting the landscape into rectangular tracts of land to grow sugar cane, cotton and coffee crops.
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