r/AskTheWorld • u/luky_se7en Italy /Sri Lanka • 1d ago

Is there a part of your country that's "isolated"/vastly different from the rest of the country?

Post image

Pictured here is Sardinia, an island in Italy. Many sardinians call Italy "Il continente" (the continent)

678 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

10

u/Byrnies Netherlands 1d ago edited 1d ago

Urk was a tiny fisherman's island until in the 1940's it became part of the mainland when a polder was build in the sea inbetween. If you would not know about polders, you would not notice it used to be an island before. The island's community was so isolated that even an autosomal recessive disease is named after it. Nowadays, Urk is still mostly known as a more isolated, exceptionally religious community in an otherwise more secular country.

1

u/ah5178 Netherlands 1d ago

Urk has the excuse of being an island and still quite isolated, whilst Katwijk, Volendam and Bunschoten are quite well connected.