Ens, Netherlands, Europe
 
 
Year1947latitude: 52° 37'
longitude: 5° 49'
Period
Initiator(s)
Planning organizationWieringermeer Directorate
Nationality initiator(s)Netherlands
Designer(s) / Architect(s)F.H. Dingemans
Design organization
Inhabitants3,105 (2020)
Target population2,000
Town websitehttp://www.ens-nop.nl/
Town related linkshttp://www.noordoostpolder.nl/
Literature- Duin, R.H.A. and G. de Kaste; The pocket guide to the Zuyder Zee project; 1990
- Wal, Coen van der; In Praise of Common Sense. Planning the Ordinary. A Physical Planning History of the New Towns in the IJsselmeerpolders; 1997
- Wal, Coen van der; Villages in the IJsselmeerpolders. From Slootdorp to Zeewolde; 1986

type of New Town: > scale of autonomy
New-Town-in-Town
Satellite
New Town
Company Town
> client
Private Corporation
Public Corporation
> policy
Capital
Decentralization
Industrialization
Resettlement
Economic
 

Ens, May 1955
source: Nieuw Land Erfgoedcentrum, Lelystad



source: Nieuw Land


Ens is located in the Noordoostpolder, a polder that was reclaimed between 1937 and 1942 and previously belonged to the Zuiderzee. With over 30 kilometers of dike, an agricultural area of 460 km2 was added to the Dutch soil. The reclamation was a consequence of the Zuiderzee Act of 1918. Food supply had been elevated to a political priority after World War I and the economic crisis of the 1930s.
After the end of World War II, land was issued in 1947 to strictly selected farmers, mainly from the north of the country.

The design of the polder is based on the Central Place Theory (1933) of German geographer Walter Christaller (1893-1969). He was the first to look at cities as a system in which smaller and larger cities form a network in relation to each other. He distinguished between A, B and C cities: small settlements, larger cities and regional centers.
Centrally located in the Noordoostpolder is the ‘capital’ Emmeloord, a city of the B-category. Around it, in a circle, are 10 villages of the A-category: Marknesse, Ens, Tollebeek, Luttelgeest, Nagele, Rutten, Creil, Kraggenburg, Espel and Bant. The later built Lelystad was a city of the C-category. The two islands of Schokland and Urk became part of the polder through reclamation.

source: INTI

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