Ambition to drain the Mediterranean to create a Euro-African supercontinent

A German architect has come up with an ambitious plan to merge Europe and Africa into one supercontinent by draining the Mediterranean Sea and building dams.

Graphic simulation of Europe and Africa after the merger. Photo: Ittiz.

Herman Sörgel, a German architect, proposed a project called Atlantropa to connect Europe and Africa to create a supercontinent by sucking up part of the Mediterranean Sea in 1928, according to The Conversation. Sörgel hoped that this grand plan would be the answer to the refugee crisis in Europe after World War I and bring peace to the world.

As strange as the idea of ​​unification may seem, Sörgel's plan was seriously considered by German leaders and even the United Nations. At their closest point, Europe and Africa are only 14 kilometers apart, with the Mediterranean Sea between them.

The cornerstone of the supercontinent plan is the dams that span the Straits of Gibraltar and the Dardanelles, connecting Sicily to Tunisia. Each dam will house giant hydroelectric power plants. Sörgel believes that the plan will turn the Mediterranean into two basins, with the western part lowered by 100 meters and the eastern part raised by 200 meters, creating a total of 660,200 square kilometers of reclaimed land in an area larger than France.

"The later phase of the Atlantropa project included two dams on the Congo River, creating the Chad and Congo Seas. According to Sörgel, this could have made the African climate more palatable for European settlers," said Dr Ricarda Vidal, lecturer in Culture and Cultural History at King's College, London, UK.

“What makes the Atlantropa project so appealing is the dream of creating world peace not through politics and diplomacy, but through a simple technical solution,” Dr. Vidal said.

The Atlantropa project would be managed by an independent body that would have the power to cut off electricity to any country that posed a threat. Sörgel also calculated that building the supercontinent would cost countries so much money that they would no longer have enough money to fight a war.

However, Sörgel's plan was not approved. The project's drafts, including drawings of the new cities and his letter of support, are in the archives of the Deutsche Museum in Munich, Germany.

According to VNE