Netherlands Travel - Flevoland Province
After a devastating flood in 1916, the decision was made to enclose and reclaim the Zuiderzee, and thus the Zuiderzee Works started. Zuiderzee Works was a system of dams and dikes, land reclamation, and water drainage project, which was the largest hydraulic engineering project undertaken by the Netherlands during the twentieth century. In 1932, a flood defense barrier named Afsluitdijk was constructed which split Zuiderzee into two separate water bodies - the closed part named IJsselmeer, the biggest freshwater lake in Europe (from which the Markermeer was later split off) and the non-closed part named the Wadden Sea. The first land claimed was northeast polder (Noordoostpolder) in 1942 which included the former small islands Urk and Schokland. In the southwest the Flevopolder, much larger than the Noordoostpolder was reclaimed by 1968. In 1986, they voted to merge together to form the current-day province of Flevoland which is since the youngest of the 12 provinces of the Netherlands.
Flevoland's capital, Lelystad, is named after Cornelis Lely (1854–1929), the pioneering engineer who came up with the Zuiderzee Work's initial concept. Agriculture is the main industry in this flat province.
So through this series of articles, I intend to share our stories and experiences of traveling across the Flevoland province of the Netherlands with our fellow photography and travel enthusiasts. I hope they help you plan your travels across this beautiful province!
Schokland, the first Dutch site on the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites, located in the current province of Flevoland, was a peninsula in the Netherlands since prehistoric times. But since it was primarily a soft peatland, it suffered greatly from the frequent floods from the Zuiderzee which was an inland sea in the northern part of the Netherlands that existed from approximately the beginning of the late Middle Ages. In the 15th century, the Zuiderzee crept into a part of the land of Schokland and cut it off from the mainland converting it into an island. Post that inhabitants again occupied it. However due to continued flooding of the sea, the residents had to leave the island regularly, and it had to be permanently evacuated in 1859.