Lowestoft is an English North Sea coastal town and civil parish in the county of Suffolk, on the edge of The Broads. It is the most easterly UK settlement, 110 miles north-east of London, 38 miles north-east of Ipswich and 22 miles south-east of Norwich, and the main town in the district of East Suffolk. There is an estimated population of over 70,000 in the built-up area. The port developed out of the fishing industry and as a seaside resort with wide sandy beaches. As its fishing declined, oil and gas exploitation in the southern North Sea in the 1960s developed. While this too has declined, Lowestoft is becoming a regional centre of the renewable energy industry.