World’s largest man-made island is in Europe and cost £55m to build

Across the English Channel is an incredibly impressive feat of construction and engineering that a lot of people have not heard of.

Flevoland is a man-made island off the coast of the Netherlands.

It consists of three polders – tracts of lowland taken back from a body of water, often the sea using dykes – that were ‘reclaimed’ from the eastern side of Lake IJssel, part of the former Zuiderzee, an inlet.

The province was built as other parts of the country became ‘too full’. The province produces apples, cereals, and flowers and houses dairy cattle.

It is also used for light industrial and recreational purposes.

The major population centre of Flevoland, and its provincial capital, is Lelystad on Lake IJssel in East Flevoland Polder.

It is 931 square miles and it is thought to have cost £55,299,011 to build. This is roughly equivalent to around £957 per hectare.

The land is four metres below sea level and floats with the aid of ‘miles of dykes’. The island offers walking and cycling, nature, culture and museums and activities for kids.

The ‘reclamation’ of Flevoland started in 1924 after the closure of the 2.5km-long Amsteldiepdijk dike between the solid land of North Holland and the island of Wieringen.

Once the Noordoostpolder – a polder and municipality in the Flevoland – was complete, the workers began laying out Oostelijk Flevoland.

This was meant to accommodate the population of the ‘overfull’ Randstad – a conurbation in the Netherlands. According to Nationaal Park Nieuw Land, this was ‘desperately needed’.

In addition, the urbanisation in North and South Holland was ‘taking on such a form that new land was required for residential building and recreation’. After the successful completion of Flevoland’s eastern polder in 1957, the southern polder soon followed in 1968.

Then on January 1, 1986, Flevoland officially became the newest and 12th province of the Netherlands.