In the Northwest European delta region, brimming with water, fishing had always assumed an important place in supplying the inhabitants with the necessities of life. The time came, however, when an informal, local activity became organized, specialized, and market oriented. This transition might be compared to the development of shipping. In Chapter 2, section 2.1, we noted how the lands behind the dunes made use of the many waterways and of a strategic location to develop an important position as a shipping intermediary over long distances. When later technical developments caused this shipping to move from protected inland waters increasingly to the open sea, the shippers of the Northern Netherlands did not relinquish their hold on this traffic. They adapted. The early emergence of the region's many small cities can also be accounted for in the context of this longdistance shipping activity.

The fisheries, which owed their initial existence to the geographical character of the region, received an important stimulus toward more formal organization and specialization from the growth of urban demand, which was, in turn, related to the rise of interregional shipping. In parallel with the developments occurring in shipping, the fisheries began pushing beyond the inland waters toward the open sea, and they encountered challenges and opportunities that led to important innovations which made possible the supply of distant markets. In this way the fisheries grew to become an important sector of the regional economy, producing a commodity that maintained for some two centuries a leading place among the exports of the Northern Netherlands and exerted a major influence on its balance of payments.