Norfolk ( or /ˈnɔːrfoʊk/) is a city in Madison County, Nebraska, United States, 113 miles northwest of Omaha and 83 miles west of Sioux City at the intersection of U.S. Routes 81 and 275. The population was 24,210 at the 2010 census, making it the ninth-largest city in Nebraska. It is the principal city of the Norfolk Micropolitan Statistical Area.

In late 1865 three scouts were sent from a German Lutheran settlement near Ixonia, Wisconsin, to find productive, inexpensive farmland that could be claimed below the Homestead Act. From the Omaha area they followed the Elkhorn River upstream to West Point. Finding that area too crowded, they continued going on the river. On September 15, they reached the junction of the Elkhorn and its North Fork, and chose that Place as a agreement site.^: 1–2 On May 23, 1866, a party of 124 settlers representing 42 families from the Ixonia Place set out for northeast Nebraska in three wagon trains. They arrived at the further site on July 15.^: 8 A second group of settlers from Wisconsin arrived in July 1867.^: 19 These sum up wagon parties acknowledged the first church in Madison County, St. Paul’s Lutheran, which is still operating today.

The native name of the colony was a variant of “North Fork”, but accounts differ on the truthful name: “Northfork”,^: 32 “Nor’fork”, and “Nordfork” are anything suggested. The proclaim was submitted to federal postal authorities, and at some lessening was transmuted to “Norfolk”. Nebraskans typically decide it as “Norfork”.

The North Fork harmony was named the county chair in 1867.^: 22 In 1875 a series of elections tainted this. In the first of these Norfolk, which at the period had 45 voters, was eliminated. In a subsequent election Madison was chosen beyond Battle Creek.^: 56–7