We don’t share a border with France, only with Belgium and Germany.
Bzzzt! Wrong answer!
Polycarp got it right!
I see, interesting. I didn’t know that the major urban centers were in the below-sea-level areas.
How did that work out historically? Did the medieval Dutch build these cities in polders from the start? Or did the sea level rise / land sunk turning original coastal dry land into polders?
the romans encountered fierce blue-eyed fighters living in the swampy regions whom they called ‘batavi.’ i suppose they’ve always been used to living in areas outside of fast land.
Have you ever been there? “High ground” is a myth. As noted, 75% of the country is less than one meter above - or is below - sea level. If you are metric-impaired, a meter is only about three feet. Where exactly would you have them build?
IIRC from my “Holland for Tourists” museum placards… the earliest settlers began building drainage ditches to farm the marshy areas. As the water drained out of the peat soil, it began to sink - so they built walls (dikes around their fields and put wind-powered pumps to keep draing any seepage.
Part of the problem was that the land sinks as it is drained, reinforcing the need for dikes. Plus, as more areas have more diking, of course it will take a while to flood any one area if a dike breaches. It seems to be more like “Oh, crap, load up the car” instead of “run for your life!”
Plus from what I saw there is a significant dike between the (above sea level) edge of the country and the North Sea, with only a few holes like the channel to Amsterdam. A massive storm surge will not overwhelm the whole country unless it is epically proportioned. (Does the channel to Amsterdam have flood gates?) I assume they ahve the capacity too to handle extreme precipitation too.
The big river is to the south, at Belgium.
So basically, TonKa has it right from what little I know (seeing as how he has better knowledge). The risk is pretty low.
Sure, we have a very thick border with France, we call it Belgium.
About the costs to keep our feet dry in this beautiful country, it’s a lot of money but we can afford it 
Despite the enormous costs to keep the water out, the Netherlands is still number 10 on the List of the World’s Richest countries.
Yes I know, USA is Nr. 9, but we’ll beat you next year 
Nope. Just as England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are four ‘nations’ within the ‘country’ the United Kingdom, you Nederlanders have a similar oddity. The former United Provinces north of Belgium and west of Germany that everyone thinks of as “the Netherlands” are one Land among four in what I think is called Konikrijk Nederlands (correct me, please!), the other three being the former Netherlands Antilles: Aruba, Curacao, and Sint Maartin. And the latter, aq constituent part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, shares an island, with a land border in the local mountains, with a departement of Republique Francais.
And another oddity is that while Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten each have the status of “countries” within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Saba, Bonaire and Sint Eustatius now form part of the same country as European Netherlands, even though they are also in the Antilles.
You’re going to either make him very happy or very sorry that he popped in here.
When did Bonaire split off from Curacao? Why wasn’t I informed? 
I want to visit Saba one day. I sailed past it one night.
I see your point:* The Kingdom of the Netherlands* (in Dutch we say “Koningkrijk der Nederlanden”) shares a border with the* Republic of France*. But when I say bread, I don’t mean the crumbs.
And we are slightly off topic…
Fair enough, and I like the witty turn of phrase, but you’ll find that part of the defining character and culture of this message board is an interest in the quirky facts of geography and history that some might dismiss as irrelevant. For me, the fact that Netherlands and France share a border, albeit on the other side of the Atlantic, is interesting and worth mentioning. So when Polycarp posted that high ground in the Netherlands was limited to certain provinces, I took the opportunity to nitpick his post by posting a cryptic reference to the high ground in the Antilles, which I guessed (correctly) that he would understand.
Incidentally, I have stood on the highest point in the European Netherlands, at the drielandenpunt of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.