History
Flevoland has a remarkable history. Until far into the last century, the land where almost 400,000 people live and work now was still four metres deep in the sea. It was only in 1967 that the last part of that sea became dry land. In just a few decades, Dutch engineers had build a number of large dikes and created the so-called polders by pumping the water out.
Flevoland consists of three such polders totaling 1,450 sq.km of fertile land. A large part is in use for agricultural purposes, forests and other nature. Over the years, more and more land has been allocated to build our two major cities Almere and Lelystad as well as a number of smaller towns and villages.
The first plans for the reclamation of the large sea in the middle of The Netherlands - the Suyder See - date from the end of the 17th century, the so-called Golden Age in Holland’s history. After much deliberations, the law for the Flevoland-project finally received parliamentary approval in 1918, just after the First World War and after a number of disastrous floods in large parts of Holland. The law was the work of Cornelis Lely who many years later lend his name to the capital of Flevoland, Lelystad.
The first work, building the 20 miles Afsluitdijk in the northwest of the country, started in 1927 and took five years to finish. At the beginning of the 1930‘s, in the middle of the Great Depression, the actual reclamation started. This first polder, the so-called Wieringermeer, is the only one not to be part of what is nowadays known as Flevoland. The other three polders, Noordoostpolder and Oostelijk and Zuidelijk Flevoland), followed in the next decades and in 1967 one of the largest polder projects in the country‘s history was finally completed.
MEMO
Nieuw Land Poldermuseum in Lelystad is specialized in the history of Flevoland, offering a number of expositions as well as a large study centre.
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