Lauwersmeer

Lauwersmeer is a person made lake inside the north of the Netherlands, on the border of the provinces of Groningen and Friesland. The lake became formed on 23 May 1969, while the dike among the bay known as Lauwers Sea and the Wadden Sea became closed. It is referred to for birdwatching.

The Lauwers Sea became fashioned by means of a flood in 1280 and named after the river Lauwers, which flows along the border among the provinces of Groningen and Friesland. During the flood the mouth of the river Lauwers disappeared, and its tributaries the Reitdiep, the Dokkumerdiep, and the Ee flowed at once into the new bay. Many plans had been made after this catastrophe to shut it off from the sea however none become ever put into effect. However, parts of it were empoldered piecemeal, slowly lowering it from a big 2 forked estuary to the nearly rectangular inlet seen on current maps. The first serious plans for draining the Lauwers Sea had been from 1849.