10. Zoetermeersche Meerpolder - Leidschendam

Until the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Zoetermeer Lake lay on the edge of what is now Zoetermeer. This was an oval-shaped lake with a surface area of over 500 hectares. Along the shores of the lake, peat extraction took place, weakening the land and causing parts of the ground to be washed away by waves. In addition, there was increasing demand for fertile land for arable farming and livestock.

In 1613, the lord of the manor of Zoetermeer, a professor of medicine from Leiden and a merchant from Antwerp living in Leiden applied to the States of Holland for a permit to drain the lake. On 15 March 1614, this permit was granted. A ring ditch was dug around the lake and a ring dyke was constructed. Then three windmills, of which the mill stumps can still be seen in the distance, drained the lake.

In 1616, the first reclaimed lake in Rijnland came into being: the Zoetermeersche Meerpolder. Unlike a polder, a piece of enclosed land that is artificially kept dry using sluices, mills or pumping stations, a reclaimed lake is a drained lake or peatland. So technically, every reclaimed lake is a polder, but not every polder is a reclaimed lake.