Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver:740:polder (Quillman)

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

Polder= land that would be under the sea without dikes and waterworks built by the Dutch.

More commonly, land reclaimed from the sea. The Dutch considerably enlarged their territory by creating polders, transforming shallow sea arms into land suitable for habitation or agriculture. The basic idea is to enclose the chosen area with dikes, then pumping out the water. The whole province of Flevoland is in fact a large polder. (St.CountZero).