"Yorck" was ordered under the provisional name "Ersatz" and built at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg under construction number 167. Her keel was laid down on 25 April 1903 and she was launched on 14 May 1904. General Wilhelm von Hahnke gave a speech at the launching ceremony and the vessel was christened "Yorck" after Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg, a Prussian general during the Napoleonic Wars by Josephine Yorck von Wartenburg, one of his descendants. Fitting-out work was completed by late 1905, when the ship began builder's trials, after which a shipyard crew transferred the vessel to Kiel, where she was commissioned into the fleet on 21 November. After her commissioning, "Yorck" served with the fleet in I Scouting Group, which she formally joined on 27 March 1906. On 2 April, she replaced the armored cruiser as the group flagship, under the command of "Vizeadmiral" ("VAdm"—Vice Admiral) Gustav Schmidt. Over the next several years, "Yorck" took part in the peacetime routine of training exercises with the fleet reconnaissance forces and with the entire High Seas Fleet, including major fleet exercises every autumn in late August and early September.