about half of the land of the entire country

is at or below 1 meter above sea level

and 25% percent of the countries land is at or even below sea level

this can be seen more obviously when you look at a relief map of the country like this one

Most of the land here in the north is flat

the land in the center has some low rolling hills

and the highest part of the country is here in the south

at just 322m above sea level

where the land rises slightly into the foot hills of the Ardennes mountains

So based on what i just told you

there is no such thing as a mountain in the Netherlands

we've constructed over 50 buildings that are

taller than the tallest point in the country.

but that hasn't stopped a few eccentric dutch from dreaming

it is been said that god may have created the world

but the Dutch created the Netherlands

building an entire mountain seems unrealistic until you consider what else the Dutch have already done

like their so far victorious centuries long war against the ocean

between 1200 and 1900 the Dutch people managed to reclaim 940 thousand acres of land

from the sea and an additional 345 thousand acres by draining their lakes

but the craziest thing they've probably done

was just last century when they transformed an entire ocean bay into

two fresh water lakes and reclaimed enough land from it to add another province

into the Netherlands called Flevoland

the Dutch claimed enough land from the sea by doing this

that it was twice the size of Singapore

and this amazing feat of engineering led some to

speculate about what else they might be capable of achieving

and thus we arrive in 2011 and encounter a man named

Thijs Zonneveld who first proposed the idea to build the mountain in a news column

Zonneveld suggested that the flat Netherlands

needed a mountain 2 kilometers tall and 5 kilometers wide

such a huge geographic feature he argued

would greatly benefit Dutch sports

as the Netherlands has struggled before in games like skiing and bobsledding

a 2 kilometer tall mountain would also enable

Dutch athletes to train at higher altitudes at home

instead of going somewhere else to train

a 2 kilometer tall giant man made mountain

would also probably become a pretty big tourist attraction

as it would easily become the tallest man made structure ever build

the Burj Khalifa the current man made structure in the world

is only 828 meters tall

witch is less than half the height that this mountain would be

it was also suggested

that the mountain could provide a huge surface to place solar panels on

in addition to windmills at higher altitudes

witch together could provide Europe with an enormous amount of clean and renewable energy

but the most hilarious part about the construction of this mountain

would be the numerous problems that it would probably cause

first of all it actually probably possible

to build something like this in real life

if the mountain was solid though it would tak up an insane

7.7 billion cubic meters of sand and rocks

reacquiring that much material is actually doable

but the estimated price tag of over

7 trillion dollars to finish the mountain

when accounting for all the time and labor that it would take just makes it seem silly

for reference NASA has estimated before

that the price to establish a permanently manned base on mars

would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 trillion dollars

so we could either send hundreds of people to Mars

and establish multiple bases or give the Dutch

a mountain so their athletes don't have to travel to Ostria

to train for winter sports its a pretty tough choice, but consider

also what the mountain would do to the surrounding country side

concentrating that much material that's mostly flat and below sea level

would probably affect all the land in a 50 kilometer radius around it

all of that land could sink by as much as 100 meters

witch would put it almost certainly below sea level witch means yeah

the mountain would probably turn into an island surrounded by a lake

this lead designers to propose reclaiming more land

form the sea and building the mountain just off the coast of the Netherlands

but this just brought up even more problems

building anywhere here off the coast of Zeeland or in this lake

was determined that it would too badly effect shipping routes near the port of Rotterdam

and building in this lake would create

a weird tall obstacle for pilots landing nearby Amsterdam Schiphol airport

basically the geography of the Netherlands is flat for a reason

and there is really no good place for a mountain in the middle of nowhere

this led Zonneveld and some of the designers suggesting a smaller mountain

just 1 kilometer tall or even one just 300 meters tall

but a 300 meter tall mountain is less of a mountain

and more of a hill isn't it?

over the past 2 years that i have been making videos on this channel

I've gotten a lot of suggestions and requests

from you guys related to RealLifeLore merch

so i'm proud to announce that it's finally happening

if you wanna get a RealLifeLore t-shirt or a hoodie with eighter

with either a windmill or a car that may or may not be a Toyota Corola on it

you can finally do so by clicking the link in the description

and heading over to standard.tc/reallifelore

if I ever see one of you guys wearing one of these in public

I promise ill say something similar to thank you

but even better the first 50 people to checkout the website

and place their order

will get 10% off whatever you get by using the code "TOYOTA" at checkout

thanks so much for cheking it out

and don't forget to subscribe if you're new

and ill see you next week for another brand new video then