Reclaimed Land in the Netherlands

Here on the left is a map of reclaimed land in Holland. The really light green is the initial land and the dark green is all the reclaimed land.
It is estimated that about 40% of the Netherlands lies below sea level (maybe that's why the Dutch people are so tall!). The Dutch have had to fight against the ocean by building dikes so that they don't have any great floods. besides this the Dutch have reclaimed land formerly covered with ocean. About 2/5 of the netherlands has been claimed from the water.
If you look closely at this map, where we live in Hoogland is just about at the bottom and centre of this map. The town of Spakenburg is just north of us. It was a big fishing town and right on the edge of the ocean, but not any more!