Map - Urk

Urk is a municipality and a town in the Flevoland province in the central Netherlands.

Urk is first mentioned in historical records dating to the 10th century, when it was still an island in the Zuiderzee, an inland sea that would become part of the IJsselmeer in the 13th century after a series of incursions by the North Sea. In 1939, a dike from the mainland to Urk ended the town's island status, just as the Afsluitdijk project was changing the salt water Zuiderzee surrounding Urk to the less saline IJsselmeer. Later in the 20th century, seabed areas surrounding Urk were reclaimed from the sea to become the Noordoostpolder.

The mainstay of the town's formal economy has always been fishing, and the products of the sea coming in through Urk harbor continue to be exported widely, although today Urk's fishing boats must travel greater distances to gather them than was required in most historical periods. Religious life has traditionally been very important to Urk's inhabitants, with active, conservative congregations of the Dutch Reformed denominations playing key roles in the life of the community.

Towards the north, the IJsselmeer is enclosed by an arc of boulder clay high areas of land which formed during an ice age glaciations of the Pleistocene epoch: Texel, Wieringen, Urk, de Voorst, and Gaasterland. To the south of that arc a lake formed as a result of meltwater, which became known as Almere. North of the boulder clay highland of Urk, the Vecht river flowed into the Almere, while the river IJssel with tributaries flowed into the south of Urk. As the climate became warmer during the Middle Ages, the sea level rose whilst the surrounding areas have been slowly steadily sinking because of forebulge effect since the end of the Ice Age. During the 13th century (and especially after a large storm in 1282) the Zuiderzee formed, and the water round Urk suddenly became a tidal sea. Because there was no sea defense, over time large pieces of the island eroded. The southwest side of Urk, which rose perpendicularly out of the sea, was called het Hoge Klif ("the High Cliff"). Around 1700 the municipality of Amsterdam donated sea defenses to Urk. The town contains the highest point in the province of Flevoland.