Overijssel and Flevoland

The province of Overijssel (meaning "on the other side of the IJssel river") in the east of the Netherlands, was part of Utrecht until in 1528 the Spanish King Charles V, as count of Holland, inherited the area. The province has an area of 3421 square kilometres and over a million inhabitants. The province has mainly a sandy soil, traversed by rivers and streams. In the north west of the province there are polders and small lakes. The village of Giethoorn, sometimes called "the Venice of the North", as most traffic is by boat, is situated here. The provincial capital is Zwolle, an old fortified city. To the north of Zwolle are the traditional Calvinist villages of Staphorst and Rouveen where the women still wear traditional dress. Overijssel shares a border with the provinces of Fryslân, Drenthe, Gelderland and Flevoland, while in the east, near its largest city, Enschede, it borders Germany.

The province of Flevoland is the twelfth and latest province of the Netherlands and consists of the polders Noordoostpolder, eastern Flevoland and southern Flevoland. These polders were the result of the draining of parts of the former inland sea, the Zuiderzee, now known as the IJsselmeer since the sea was changed into a freshwater lake by closing it off in 1932. The province of Flevoland was established on 1 January 1986 and Lelystad, the largest city in eastern Flevoland, became its capital. The province has an area of 2412 square kilometres and its population is around 342000.

The Noordoostpolder (North East Polder) was started in 1936 by building a dike of 90 km from the Frisian town of Lemmer, via the island of Urk to the coast of Overijssel. Water was then pumped out and on 9 September 1942 the polder was declared dry. The islands of Urk and Schokland ceased to be; Urk remained a fishing community, although its fleet now operated from the Frisian port of Harlingen and Schokland, whose population already had left the island 80 years before because of frequent flooding, became a hill in the landscape. A new town of Emmeloord became the centre of the Noordoostpolder, a polder with mainly farms, but also a forest, planted on loam grounds, unsuitable for agriculture.

The large Flevopolder was drained in two parts: first Eastern Flevoland, for which in 1956 a "ring dike" was completed, leaving a narrow lake between the new polder and the mainland. In 1959 a ring dike was started for southern Flevoland and this was completed in 1967. Both polders were joined together and Lelystad became the urban centre in eastern Flevoland while Almere, close to Amsterdam and used to ease the population pressure from there, became the centre of southern Flevoland.

	Giethoorn	Bridge, Giethoorn	Cattle transport	Main canal, Giethoorn
	Farm house, Staphorst	Wooden shoes	Kampen	Zuiderzee polders
	Church, Schokland	Old harbour, Schokland	Central station, Almere	"Botter" sailing boat

Enter your search termsSubmit search form   Web WorldPics

Click on the map to select a continent...