Almere Muziekwijk railway station

Almere (Dutch pronunciation: [ɑlˈmeːrə] (listen)) is a planned city and municipality in the province of Flevoland, Netherlands, bordering Lelystad and Zeewolde. The municipality of Almere comprises six official areas that are the districts of Almere Stad (which is further split up into Almere Stad Oost, Almere Stad West and Almere Centrum), Almere Buiten and Almere Pampus (which is currently being designed), and the boroughs of Almere Haven, Almere Hout and Almere Poort. Four of them feature official district or borough offices. Furthermore, it also comprises the unofficial historic district and neighborhood Oostvaardersdiep, which has an active semi-self-governing community, and the planned district of Almere Oosterwold. Almere is part of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (MRA). Almere is the newest city in the Netherlands: the land on which the city sits, the Southern Flevoland polder, was reclaimed from the IJsselmeer from 1959 to 1968. The first house was finished in 1976, and Almere became a municipality in 1984. It has the largest population of the municipalities in Flevoland with 207,904 citizens in 2019 and the 7th largest in the Netherlands. In October 2007, the city council of Almere made agreements with the government to expand the city to 350,000 inhabitants by 2030.

Almere Stad is a district of the city Almere in the Dutch province Flevoland. The first houses in Almere Stad were finished in 1980. Nowadays there are several residential areas, offices, industrial areas, parks, and a lake. The city hall as well as a regional hospital are located in Almere Stad. In March 2006, the first shops in the new city centre were opened. This new city centre has been designed by Rem Koolhaas [1] and hosts an attractive waterfront, a state of the art cinema, a theatre, several retail outlets, restaurants and apartments.

Almere Centrum is a railway station in Almere, Netherlands. It is located approximately 22 kilometres east of Amsterdam. The station lies on the Weesp–Lelystad railway. Almere Centrum is located in central Almere: a new town established in 1976 on land reclaimed from the sea (cf. Flevoland). Almere Centrum has two platforms and four tracks, and was opened in 1987 following the completion of the Flevolijn between Weesp railway station and Lelystad Centrum. The station's original name was Almere Central Station (CS), but it was renamed in 1999 to Almere Centrum. The station building has a glass roof, and the tracks and platforms are elevated above street level. Almere Centrum bus station is located beneath the railway station.

Weerwater is a small artificial lake in Almere Stad, the central district of Almere in the province Flevoland, Netherlands. The water and shores are used for recreation. On and around Weerwater a cable ski track, a watersportscenter, watchtower, marina, campsite and four beaches: Atlantisstrand (South shore) Fantasiestrand (southwestern shore) Lumièrestrand (eastern shore) Stedenwijkstrand (west shore)The lake started off as a borrow pit, caused by excavations for Almere Haven and is situated north of Rijksweg 6. Because these excavations caused a new body of water to form, within a polder, this name "Weerwater" ("water again") was adopted. The actual city center of Almere is situated directly to the north shore and the city theatre Kunstlinie Almere Flevoland 'hovers' over the water. The perimeter of the Weerwater is approximately 7 kilometres (4.3 mi). In 2009 the idea surfaced to let three locally well known writers tell the story about the city of Almere, due to the report 'Almere, stad met verbeelding' ('Almere, city with imagination'). The writers were invited to live in Almere with the task to write about their new residence. The second writer Renate Dorrestein named her novel: Weerwater In the year 2022 horticultural exhibition Floriade is planned on the south side of the het Weerwater, on both sides of Rijksweg A6.

Almere Gate (; Dutch: Almere Poort) is a borough (stadsdeel) of Almere, Netherlands. It is the newest part of what is a new city itself, with the first building completed only in 2005. Although Almere is a planned city, Almere Poort was not in the original city plans, but is rather a result of revised urban planning in accordance to Almere's more recent development plans assuming much higher target population and more prominent role as a satellite urban centre to Amsterdam. Almere Poort is located on the western bank of the IJmeer, with the Almeerderstrand beach forming the borough's (as well as municipality's and province's) western boundary. It borders Almere Haven to the south, Almere Stad to the east and the yet-undeveloped (as of 2012) designated district of Almere Pampus to the North. The A6 motorway runs along the borough's southern border, with one exit at Poortdreef and one at Hogering, the latter of which runs along the eastern border. The Flevolijn railway line runs semi-diagonally across the borough, with local trains stopping at the borough's station Almere Poort railway station. The former Almere Strand railway station, which was serviced only during events at Almeerderstrand, was also within the boundaries of Almere Poort. It was demolished in 2012. Since then, buses run between Almere Poort station and Almeerderstrand during events. Almere Poort differs from the other boroughs and districts in that residential development does not follow the model typical for other districts of Almere, which is mostly large-scale single-family housing developments built according to a common plan. Contrary to this, the district features both high-density apartment buildings, as well as land parcels available for free private housing development. Also contrary to older districts of Almere, Almere-Poort refers to its residential areas as kwartieren rather than wijken. The designated parts of Almere Poort according to the official website of the municipality are: Homeruskwartier - featuring land plots for private housing development, with streets named after mythological beings and characters featured in the works of Homer Europakwartier - consisting of large-scale apartment buildings with an urban atmosphere, divided by the railway tracks into Europakwartier-West and Europakwartier-Oost. The street naming after European countries generally follows the east-west geographic location of countries Columbuskwartier - this residential district has streets named after famous explorers such as Christopher Columbus himself Olympiakwartier and Olympia Office Park are to be constructed around the Almere Poort railway station to form the district's multi-functional and prestigious centre. Duin which will feature beach condo's and sand hills close to the beach of Almeerderstrand and Marina Muiderzand. Cascadepark - a park between Homeruskwartier and Europakwartier with its first trees planted in 2008 Kustzone - the coastal zone along the Almeerderstrand is designated for mixed development, including residential buildings, hotels, leisure facilities and some commerce Hogekant - this commercial area in the Western extremity of the district is designated for industrial use, mostly by small and mid-sized enterprises in the craft and service sectors Middenkant - separated with a canal from the Hogekant is to provide a more high-quality neighbourhood for SMEs Lagekant - this commercial area is designated for large and international companies in the service sector

The Topsportcentrum is an indoor sports arena, located in Almere, Netherlands. Designed by architectural studio ZJA, it opened on the 7th of October in 2007. Its operator is the city of Almere and its main hall has a capacity of 3,000 people. The sports it is used most for are volleyball and basketball, with VC Allvo and Almere Pioneers use the venue as their home arena. The hall was finished in 2007 and costed €14 million. From 2007 until 2013, the hall was used for the final of the NBB Cup, the main cup competition for men's basketball teams. On 24 February 2020, Basketball Nederland announced the national basketball team will play its international home games in Almere until 2023.

Almere Haven is the oldest borough of Almere (although the first houses of Almere were built in the neighborhood now known as Oostvaardersdiep in Almere Buiten). Although Almere Haven does not have its own railway station, it is well-connected to Amsterdam and the rest of Almere by a good bus rapid transit system.Almere Haven has a small harbour, as well as a marina and is surrounded by large forests of poplars containing buzzards, foxes, small deer, and owls. The closest forests are Beginbos and Waterlandsebos. Almere Haven features a mall that, for the most part, closely resembles the downtown area of a small town. Along the moat called Kerkgracht (inside the mall), it also features canal houses, which resemble old canal houses found in Downtown Amsterdam. This was done to make the first citizens (in 1975) feel at home, as they were people who had previously lived in Amsterdam. The first permanent building inside the mall was the multifunctional building De Roef, which closed down a long time ago. The building is still actively used; currently it is home to a Vögele Mode store.The first permanent school of Almere (Haven) was built in 1978 in the neighborhood De Werven. Its name was De Bijenkorf. As more schools were built in Almere and younger people and families settled in other parts of the city, De Bijenkorf became less important and eventually ended up with just a handful of teachers. Therefore, it was up for closure. However, instead of closing, the building burned down in December 1993 because people threw firecrackers through the mailbox. The police found out who those people were, but they never prosecuted them. The building was never restored. No trace of the building remains today because in the early 2000s, houses were built on top of the former school site. The first neighborhood of Almere Haven is De Werven. Among other houses and other things, it features a lot of greenery, a big park called Stadswerfpark, a sports center with an external playground (Playground Stadswerfpark) specifically for sports (like a soccer field and basketball court) and a public pool building. It also features a big supervised playground called De Speelhaven.Almere Haven features the most idealistic architecture in Almere, when the goal was to build a model city on the newly reclaimed land of Flevoland. The city was planned before increasing population pressure in Almere and rising property prices caused compromises on the original vision. Almost all housing developments are built to provide views of greenery and open spaces, and each group of houses is clustered around a little park (although this concept has changed in newer areas), usually with easy access to the surrounding forests, so most residents of Almere Haven do not have the sense of living in a crowded urban area. The urban area of Almere Haven does not have the inconveniences of busy traffic, car pollution, and road noise because all roads are cul-de-sacs connecting to a well-hidden ring road that provides the only car access in and out of Almere Haven, although there are sometimes traffic jams in rush hours on said ring roads (especially on the ring road Noorderdreef). The bus rapid transit system contains a large loop throughout the borough with a bus stop in almost every neighborhood.

The Gooimeer (Gooi Lake) is a bordering lake in the Netherlands between the southeastern part of North Holland (the Gooi) and Flevoland. There is a railroad bridge over the narrow west side, between Weesp and Almere Muziekwijk, with a parallel highway bridge, the Hollandse Brug. The narrow eastern border of the lake is crossed by two parallel highway bridges. On the south bank of Gooimeer, which used to be the IJsselmeer, before the creation of the new polder Flevoland, the old cities of Naarden and Huizen can be found. The Naarderwoonbos, part of the Naarderbos, was built in the eighties. It is situated directly adjacent to the southern shore of the Gooimeer. The Gooimeer is related to the crash of El Al Flight 1862 in 1992, as the two right-hand side jet engines separated from the plane and fell into the lake, witnessed by a fishing off-duty police officer. The plane suffered serious damage to its right wing after losing the engines, and continued on for eight minutes until it crashed into the Bijlmermeer apartment complex, killing all of the occupants of the aircraft as well as several residents of the apartment complex. See also the maps at Zuiderzee Works and bordering lakes.

Almere Poort is a railway station in Almere, Netherlands. It is located on the Flevolijn. It replaced Almere Strand railway station as the city's sixth railway station. The opening of the station, initially planned for 2007, took place on 9 December 2012. The station serves the new borough Almere Poort which is also under development since 2007 and will have 11,000 dwellings when it is finished.

Almere Strand railway station (English: Almere Beach) was a railway station in Almere, Netherlands. It was located on the Weesp–Lelystad railway (Flevolijn) between Weesp, North Holland and Almere Muziekwijk, Flevoland. Almere Strand station was served only during the Libelle Zomerweek and during events at the nearby beach. Trains at this station were operated by Nederlandse Spoorwegen. The station, which had two platforms with no facilities, was first opened on 1 May 1996 before being closed on 1 July 1996. It remained closed until 1 June 1999, when it reopened. It was closed permanently in October 2012, shortly before Almere Poort railway station opened.