Frisia is a land of ebb and flow, where water is everything. The Frisians used to be at the mercy of the ocean, but they built polders and dikes to protect themselves. They also dug canals and drained the marshes to create fertile fields. Today, we can hardly tell that these fields were once impassable mires. The legacy of the Frisians is all around us, with beautiful cities, towns, and a picturesque landscape of canals, farms, and moors. It’s a landscape defined by man’s ingenuity.
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East Frisia
Even more than its Western counterpart, Eastern Frisia is a land born from the dikes and canals that keep the ocean and moorlands at bay. This once impenetrable barrier of marshes, moors, and oceanic floods shielded the region from the forces of feudalism and created a powerful class of yeoman farmers, often more wealthy than their ostensible overlords. They used their wealth to build the dikes, drain the marshes, and dot the landscape with picturesque villages.
Oldenburger Land
For most of its history, Oldenburg was a poor land surrounded by barren moors and marshes. The city sat upon a small hill that shielded it from the storm tides that scourged the land occasionally and allowed its Frisian rulers to build a small duchy built on agriculture and trade. However, the conquest of the moorlands required powerful steam-powered traction engines that could plow the peat bogs and dredge the canals. Today, it’s a fertile agricultural region with scattered traces of the colonists that transformed the landscape.
West Frisia
West Frisia was the heartland of the Frisian people, and they fought for centuries to retain their freedom and independence. Protected by deep marshlands and ocean tides, the Frisians built a remarkably egalitarian society until the Empire finally overcame its defenses in the 16th century. Nevertheless, a culture of independence and ingenuity helped to push the ocean back and settle a fertile land with beautiful cities and towns.
