Afsluitdijk, a 32 km dike in the Netherlands.

A dike (or dyke) is an artificial earthen wall, constructed as a defence or as a boundary. It is known in American English as a levee. The best known form of dike is a construction built along the edge of a body of water, to prevent it from flooding onto an adjacent lowland. Dikes can be mainly found along the sea, where dunes are not strong enough, along rivers for protection against high-floods, along lakes or along polders. Furthermore, dikes have been built for the purpose of empoldering, or as a boundary for an inundation area. The latter can be a controlled inundation by the military or a measure to prevent inundation of a larger area surrounded by dikes. Dikes have also been built as field boundaries and as military defences. More on this type of dike can be found in the article on dry-stone walls. Download high resolution version (888x561, 128 KB)This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons, a repository of free content hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. ... Download high resolution version (888x561, 128 KB)This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons, a repository of free content hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. ... Afsluitdijk The Afsluitdijk (Closure-dike) is a major dam in the Netherlands, constructed between 1927 and 1933 and running from Den Oever on Wieringen in North Holland province, to the village of Zurich (mun. ... English language spread in the United States. ... A levee, levée (from the feminine past participle of the French verb lever, to raise), floodbank or stopbank is a natural or artificial embankment or dike, usually earthen, which parallels the course of a river. ... Look up flood in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Satellite image of Noordoostpolder, Netherlands (595. ... Table of Fortification, from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... It has been suggested that Rock fence be merged into this article or section. ...

Dikes can be permanent earthworks or emergency constructions (often of sandbags) built hastily in a flood emergency. Where such an emergency bank is an addition atop an existing dike, it is known as a cradge. In civil engineering, earthworks are engineering works created through the moving of massive quantities of soil or unformed stone. ... A sandbag is typically used in flood control, but the exact use can vary. ...

Dikes were first contructed in the Indus Valley Civilization (in Pakistan and North India from circa 2600 BC) on which the agrarian life of the Harappan peoples depended. ^[1] Excavated ruins of Mohenjo-daro, Sindh, Pakistan. ... A map showing North India North India is a geographic and linguistic-cultural region of India. ... (Redirected from 2600 BC) (27th century BC - 26th century BC - 25th century BC - other centuries) (4th millennium BC - 3rd millennium BC - 2nd millennium BC) Events 2900 - 2334 BC – Mesopotamian wars of the Early Dynastic period. ... The Indus Valley Civilization existed along the Indus River and the Vedic Sarasvati River in present-day Pakistan. ...

The word dike is associated with the Netherlands "dijk", where dikes were built as early as the 12th century but it was an Anglo-Saxon word dic hundreds of years before that and pronounced with a hard c in northern England and as ditch in the south. The English origins of the word lie in digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank alongside it. This practice has meant that the name may be given to either the excavation or the bank. Thus Offa's Dyke is a combined structure and Car Dyke is a trench though it once had raised banks as well. In the midlands and north of England, a dike is what a ditch is in the south, a property boundary marker or small drainage channel. Where it carries a stream, it may be called a running dike as in Rippingale Running Dike, which leads water from the catchwater drain, Car Dyke, to the South Forty Foot Drain in Lincolnshire (TF1427). The Weir Dike is a soak dike in Bourne North Fen, near Twenty and alongside the River Glen. Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) is an early form of the English language that was spoken in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland between the mid-fifth century and the mid-twelfth century. ... Offas Dyke (in Welsh, Clawdd Offa) is a massive earthwork, ostensibly between England and Wales, running from the estuary of the River Dee in the north to the River Wye in the south (approximately 150 miles, or 240 km). ... The Car Dyke was and to large extent still is, a ditch which runs along the western edge of The Fens in eastern England. ... A Catchwater Drain is a land drain, a ditch cut across the fall of the land, typically just above the level of low-lying, level ground such as The Fens of eastern England, where some land, tens of kilometres from the sea is at about sea level. ... Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs) is a county in the East Midlands of England. ... The term Soak dike is used in The Fens of eastern England to mean a ditch or drain running parallel with an embankment, for the purpose of taking any water that soaks through from the river or drain beyond the bank. ... Location within the British Isles Bourne is a town in southern Lincolnshire, England. ... Twenty is a small, somewhat remote hamlet with an unusual name, four miles east of the market town of Bourne, (between Bourne and Spalding) in Lincolnshire, England, at National Grid reference TF153207, 52. ... The River Glen is a river in Lincolnshire , England. ...

Dike can also mean a pond in the same way as Australians use the word dam. However, this is more likely in the several other languages which use obviously related words. Frisian is one of them. The Frisians who settled in England with the Angles and Saxons form a linguistic link with Dutch dating from well before the 12th century. See the stories of Saints Boniface and Wulfram. Satellite view of the German Bight (the Frisian Coast). ... For the Roman general of this name, see Bonifacius. ... Wulfram of Sens, Saint Wulfram is also known as Wulfram of Fontenelle. ...

In April 2006, South Korea completed the Saemangeum Seawall, displacing Afsluitdijk as the longest man-made dike in the world. The Saemangeum Seawall, located on the southwest coast of the Korean peninsula, is the worlds longest man-made dyke, measuring 33 kilometres. ... Afsluitdijk The Afsluitdijk (Closure-dike) is a major dam in the Netherlands, constructed between 1927 and 1933 and running from Den Oever on Wieringen in North Holland province, to the village of Zurich (mun. ...

See also

• Afsluitdijk
• Saemangeum Seawall
• Tantramar Marshes
• Flood Wall
• Seawall

Afsluitdijk The Afsluitdijk (Closure-dike) is a major dam in the Netherlands, constructed between 1927 and 1933 and running from Den Oever on Wieringen in North Holland province, to the village of Zurich (mun. ... The Saemangeum Seawall, located on the southwest coast of the Korean peninsula, is the worlds longest man-made dyke, measuring 33 kilometres. ... A typical view of the Marsh The Tantramar Marshes are on the southern part of the Isthmus of Chignecto, which joins Nova Scotia to New Brunswick and the Canadian mainland. ... A floodwall gate at Harlan, Kentucky temporarily opening for train passage. ... Seawall protecting homes from storm waves and beach erosion. ...

External links and references

1. ^ http://history-world.org/indus_valley.htm The Indus Valley. Accessed June 11, 2006

• Richmond's Dyke system
• DeltaWorks.Org Flood protecting dams, dikes and barriers project in the Netherlands

References

• Ordnance Survey Pathfinder 856 (1:25 000 Sheet TF12)
• Oxford English Dictionary ISBN 0-19-861212-5