Island of Dordrecht
| Island of Dordrecht | ||
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| Waters | Rhine-Maas Delta | |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 49 ′ N , 4 ° 40 ′ E | |
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The Dutch city of Dordrecht is located on the island of Dordrecht ( German island of Dordrecht ) . The island in the Rhine-Maas Delta lies in an extensive water landscape and is surrounded by six rivers: the Rhine arm Beneden-Merwede , Nieuwe Merwede , Hollands Diep , Dordtsche Kil and Oude Maas , and it is divided into two parts by the Wantij waterway .
The most traveled waterway in the Netherlands runs in the north of the island. Ferries connect the island with Zwijndrecht , Papendrecht and Sliedrecht , and “water buses” run to Rotterdam and Gorinchem. The A16 motorway runs across the island and leads from the Moerdijkbrug to the Drecht tunnel . Another important traffic artery is the national road N3 , which runs from the Papendrechtse brug to the Kiltunnel , via which it is connected to the island of Hoeksche Waard .
Other islands in the Rhine delta are Goeree-Overflakkee , Tiengemeten , Voorne-Putten , Rozenburg , IJsselmonde and Hoeksche Waard . Until 1421, Dordrecht was on the coastline of Grote Waard . During the St. Elisabeth flood of 1421, which inundated 50,000 hectares of land and destroyed numerous villages, the dikes of Dordrecht and Geertruidenberg also broke , so that Dordrecht became an island. After many days of rain, the flood was probably initiated by a strong north-westerly storm, which caused a high storm surge. It was not a spring tide like 1953 , but the wet weather had made the rivers swell a lot. In addition, in the decade before the flood, gaps in the water defenses on the coastline of Grote Waard, the southern edge of what is now South Holland, had appeared several times . With the high water level that was already there, the tide was able to strike a large estuary between South Holland and Zeeland, which meant that the entire Grote Waard area would be lost for a long time and never be seen again in its original form.
At the point where the water had penetrated the furthest into the land, in the area behind Dordrecht, an inland lake formed which, due to its size, could no longer be drained. There the Dutch Biesbosch (rush forest) was formed, not in one day as legend has it, but over decades, which developed into a swamp area that is part of the De Biesbosch National Park .
literature
- C. Buddingh, J. Eijkelboom (eds.): Het Eiland van Dordrecht in tekst en beeld. , Kwadraat, Vianen 1982, ISBN 90-6481-301-9 .