Tulip Strip Polders

Tulip Strip Polders is an original illustration set in North Holland, Netherlands. It lies in mid-latitudes, where the climate is oceanic — mild, wet through the year.

Parallel ribbons of saturated colour stripe flat land seen from high above. A ruler-straight grid of silver drainage ditches separates every strip. One small pumping station sits at a junction, and the whole plain is level to the horizon.

Why is this farmland so flat and so precisely rectangular?

Land this flat, this rectangular and this thoroughly drained was not found — it was made. Ditches on a strict grid with pumps at the nodes mean the water table is being held down artificially, on ground lying below sea level. That drained sandy soil is exactly what bulbs need: fertile, free-draining, and never waterlogged in winter.

Terpano is a free daily geography puzzle. You study one original illustration, place a pin on a borderless terrain map, and see how close you were. There is no account and no sign-up; progress stays in your own browser. It plays in 11 languages.