The Afgedamde Maas is a former distributary of the Maas River (French: Meuse) in the Dutch province of North Brabant. The Maas splits near Heusden with one channel flowing north until its confluence with the river Waal (the main distributary of the river Rhine) to form the Merwede, while the other (the Bergse Maas) continues west as the main distributary of the Maas. The former of the two channels was dammed at Heusden in 1904, to separate the flows of the Maas and Rhine distributaries, and has since been known as the Afgedamde Maas (literally, "dammed-up"). However, the Maas is still connected with the Afgedamde Maas through the Heusden Canal. Part of the Merwede (the Nieuwe Merwede) joins the Bergse Maas to from the Hollands Diep estuary, thus eventually re-uniting the two branches of the Maas.