Urk

Urk (Dutch: [ˈʏr(ə)k] ; Urkers: Urrek; Dutch Low Saxon: Ürrek) is a municipality and a town in the Flevoland province in the center-north of the Netherlands with a population of 22,173 as of 2025. It is surrounded by the Noordoostpolder on land and is on the coast of the IJsselmeer. Urk was formerly an island in the Almere, an inland sea that would become part of the Zuiderzee in the 13th century after a series of incursions by the North Sea. The building of a dike from Lemmer in 1939 ended Urk's status as an island and connected it to the Dutch mainland. The mainstay of the town's formal economy has always been fishing, with Urk having the largest fishing fleet in the Netherlands. 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. Urk's inhabitants are socially tight-knitted and maintain their own unique dialect of Dutch. 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.