Before 1850 the low-lying areas of the Netherlands shared what I have termed an ‘amphibious culture’. The essence of this amphibious culture was a series of cultural adaptations to the wetland landscape. The first such adaption was the construction of settlements on elevations. During times of flooding, settlements provided shelter for victims from the inundated countryside. In addition, they served as centres of coordination for infrastructural repairs, as well as sources of material and financial reserves for post-flood reconstruction. A second feature was the compartmentalisation of the land, divided by interior dikes. This served to mitigate the adverse impact of floods by temporarily containing rising water levels. A third feature was the high potential of evacuation for both humans and animals due to the dense network of waterways and the wide access to boats. The amphibious culture model is derived from the coastal area around the Zuider Sea and, in this article, is applied to another low-lying part of the Netherlands, the River Region. Ultimately, the model contributes to understanding cultural and physical coping strategies and societal resilience to flooding.