TRAVEL TUESDAY 524 - ANTWERP, BELGIUM

“We are proud of our ridiculousness. That's what made our Surrealism. Proud and ashamed of everything at the same time. I think that's my definition of Belgium.” - Stromae

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Antwerp (Dutch: Antwerpen French: Anvers) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest municipality in Belgium by area at 208.22 km2. With a population of 565,039, it is the most populous municipality in Belgium, and with a metropolitan population of over 1.2 million people, the country's second-largest metropolitan area after Brussels.

Flowing through Antwerp is the river Scheldt. Antwerp is linked to the North Sea by the river's Westerschelde estuary. It is about 40 km north of Brussels, and about 15 km south of the Dutch border. The Port of Antwerp is one of the biggest in the world, ranking second in Europe after Rotterdam and within the top 20 globally. The city is also known as the hub of the world's diamond trade. In 2020, the Globalization and World Cities Research Network rated Antwerp as a Gamma + (third level/top tier) Global City.

Both economically and culturally, Antwerp is and has long been an important city in the Low Countries, especially before and during the Spanish Fury (1576) and throughout and after the subsequent Dutch Revolt. The Bourse at Antwerp, originally built in 1531 and re-built in 1872, was the world's first purpose-built commodity exchange. In 1920, the city hosted the Summer Olympics.

The natives of Antwerp are nicknamed Sinjoren (after the Spanish honorific señor or French seigneur, "lord", referring to the Spanish noblemen who ruled the city in the 17th century. The city's population is very diverse, including about 180 nationalities; as of 2019, more than 50% of its population had a parent that was not a Belgian citizen at birth. A notable community is the Jewish one, as Antwerp is one of the only two cities in Europe (together with London and its Stamford Hill neighbourhood) that is home to a considerable Haredi population in the 21st century.

In 2015, to celebrate the Antwerp City Hall’s 450th birthday, the Grand Place was covered with a carpet of flowers. 9635 plant trays were used to build the flower carpet of 30 by 60 metres.

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