EnschedeEnschede (ˈɛnsxədeː; known as Eanske ˈɛːnskə in the local Twents dialect) is a municipality and city in the eastern Netherlands in the province of Overijssel and in the Twente region. The eastern parts of the urban area reaches the border of the German city of Gronau. The municipality of Enschede consisted of the city of Enschede until 1935, when the rural municipality of Lonneker, which surrounded the city, was annexed after the rapid industrial expansion of Enschede which began in the 1860s and involved the building of railways and the digging of the Twentekanaal.
FlevolandFlevoland (ˈfleːvoːlɑnt) is the twelfth and youngest province of the Netherlands, established in 1986, when the southern and eastern Flevopolders, together with the Noordoostpolder, were merged into one provincial entity. It is in the centre of the country in the former Zuiderzee, which was turned into the freshwater IJsselmeer by the closure of the Afsluitdijk in 1932. Almost all of the land belonging to Flevoland was reclaimed in the 1950s and 1960s while splitting the Markermeer and Bordering lakes from the IJsselmeer.
IJsselmeerThe IJsselmeer (ɛisəlˈmeːr; Iselmar, Iesselmeer), also known as Lake IJssel in English, is a closed off inland bay in the central Netherlands bordering the provinces of Flevoland, North Holland and Friesland. It covers an area of with an average depth of . The river IJssel flows into the IJsselmeer. Two thousand years ago Pomponius Mela, a Roman geographer, mentioned a complex of lakes at the current location of the IJsselmeer. He called it Lacus Flevo.
DrentheDrenthe (ˈdrɛntə) is a province of the Netherlands located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Overijssel to the south, Friesland to the west, Groningen to the north, and the German state of Lower Saxony to the east. As of November 2019, Drenthe had a population of 493,449 and a total area of . Drenthe has been populated for 15,000 years. The region has subsequently been part of the Episcopal principality of Utrecht, Habsburg Netherlands, Dutch Republic, Batavian Republic, Kingdom of Holland and Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Dutch languageDutch (Nederlands ˈneːdərlɑnts), also known as Netherlandic or Netherlandish, is a West Germanic language spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives German and English. Afrikaans is a separate but somewhat mutually intelligible daughter language spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia, evolving from the Cape Dutch dialects of Southern Africa.
ZwolleZwolle (ˈzʋɔlə) is a city and municipality in the Northeastern Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Overijssel and the province's second-largest municipality after Enschede with a population of 130,592 as of 1 December 2021. Zwolle borders on the province of Gelderland and is east of the river IJssel. Archaeological findings indicate that the area surrounding Zwolle has been inhabited for a long time. A woodhenge that was found in the Zwolle-Zuid suburb in 1993 was dated to the Bronze Age period.
LelystadLelystad (ˈleːlistɑt) is a municipality and a city in the centre of the Netherlands, and it is the capital of the province of Flevoland. The city, built on reclaimed land, was founded in 1967 and was named after Cornelis Lely, who engineered the Afsluitdijk, making the reclamation possible. Lelystad is approximately below sea level. Lelystad is built on the seabed of the former Zuiderzee. About 6,500 years ago, this wetland was above high tide level and inhabited; the Netherlands have steadily subsided since.
IJsselThe IJssel (ˈɛisəl; Iessel(t) ˈiːsl̩(t)) is a Dutch distributary of the river Rhine that flows northward and ultimately discharges into the IJsselmeer (before the 1932 completion of the Afsluitdijk known as the Zuiderzee), a North Sea natural harbour. It more immediately flows into the east-south channel around the Flevopolder, Flevoland which is kept at 3 metres below sea level. This body of water is then pumped up into the IJsselmeer. It is sometimes called the Gelderse IJssel (ˌɣɛldərsə ˈʔɛisəl; "Gueldern IJssel") to distinguish it from the Hollandse IJssel.
PolderA polder (ˈpɔldər) is a low-lying tract of land that forms an artificial hydrological entity, enclosed by embankments known as dikes. The three types of polder are: Land reclaimed from a body of water, such as a lake or the seabed Flood plains separated from the sea or river by a dike Marshes separated from the surrounding water by a dike and subsequently drained; these are also known as koogs, especially in Germany The ground level in drained marshes subsides over time.
TwenteTwente (Twente ˈtʋɛntə, Tweants dialect: Tweante) is a region in the eastern Netherlands. It encompasses the most urbanised and easternmost part of the province of Overijssel. Twente is most likely named after the Tuihanti or Tvihanti, a Germanic tribe that settled in the area and was mentioned by the Roman historian Tacitus. The region's borders are defined by the Overijssel region of Salland in the northwest and west (the river Regge roughly defines the western border), the German County of Bentheim in the northeast and east (the river Dinkel roughly defines the eastern border) and the Gelderland region of the Achterhoek in the south.