Dutch civil engineer and statesman, who designed and implemented the Zuiderzee Works, a web of dikes, pumping stations and sluices, that turned the Zuiderzee into a lake and converted large of its seabed into fertile land of sea clay.
His father was a oilseed trader. He went to the Hogere Burgerschool (HBS) in Amsterdam from 1866-1871, then studied at the Polytechnic School in Delft and graduated as civil engineer in 1875.
Between 1886 and 1891, Lely led the technical research team that explored the possibility, later approved by a State Commission, of enclosing the Zuiderzee.
Lely served three times Minister of Transport and Water Management (in 1891–1894, 1897–1901, and 1913–1918) and in this role was hugely influential in advocating the implementation of his own plans. The scheme was finally approved and realized after severe flooding along the shores of the Zuiderzee in 1916.
In 1895 Lely became member of the Royal Dutch Academy (KNAW). Lely was governor of Surinam from 1902 to 1905.
The after Lely named head town of Flevoland lies approximately 3 metres (9.8 feet) below sea level. Together with the new built city Almere (1976), also built on the former Southern Sea bottom, the cities were meant to hospitalise inhabitants of the over-crowded Randstad city Amsterdam.
A large statue of Lely stands on the western point of the Afsluitdijk, near Den Oever. It was sculpted by Mari Andriessen and unveiled on 23 September 1954, the 100th anniversary of Lely’s birth day by Queen Juliana. A replica of this statue stands in the center of the in 1967 established city Lelystad, on a 35-metre-high (115 ft) tower of basalt blocks, designed by Hans van Houwelingen. In Lelystad’s city hall is a statue of Lely made by Piet Esser.
The Eastern point of the Afsluitdijk harbours the Kazematten of Kornwerderzand, that protected the so-called Lorentz sluices and the Northern road to the heart of Holland. The Kazematten of Kornwerderzand, now an open air museum, was the first place in Europe where the German Blitzkrieg was stopped. The Battle of the Afsluitdijk took place from 12–14 May 1940, between just mobilised Dutch troops led by Captain Christiaan Boers (24 October 1889, Den Haag – 3 May 1942, Sachsenhausen) and the much craftier and better prepared German troops under General Kurt Feldt. But Captain Boers had to surrender after general Winkelman signed the Dutch surrender after the bombing attack on the medieval city of Rotterdam and the Nazi thread to bomb the next day civilians of Utrecht. Against all war rules, using the Luftwaffe for bombing and setting on-fire open cities in the heart of Holland, instead of trying to set on fire the Dutch (The Netherlands is a cancer country) water and concrete protected bunkers of the more peripheral Waterlinie (waterfront).

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