Antwerp

Antwerp is the capital of the province of Antwerpen and the second largest seaport in Europe.

Thanks to its harbor Antwerp was an important center of trade and commerce even before records began. In addition to its long established traditions in banking and insurance, the continual expansion and modernization of the port has seen the emergence of a multitude of trades and industries processing imported raw materials on the spot. Today Greater Antwerp is the biggest industrial conurbation in Belgium with shipbuilding and ship repair, petrochemicals, vehicle assembly and food manufacture among its principal activities. The city is also a major export outlet, not just for Belgium but for Europe as a whole. Five rail routes and several canals terminate at the Port of Antwerp.

The city's remarkable reputation does not rest solely on its trade and industry however; it is also the cultural capital of Flanders. Centuries of prosperity have bequeathed an inheritance which includes the magnificent cathedral, the town hall, many other outstanding historic buildings and, above all, the city's paintings, an incomparable collection of 15th to 17th century masterpieces from a time when the work of artists of the South Netherlands school attained extraordinary heights. Quentin Massys, the "Velvet" Bruegel, Rubens, van Dyck, Jordaens, Cornelis de Vos and many others all lived and worked in Antwerp. This rich cultural tradition is maintained today by the city's numerous museums, theaters, three universities and several academies and institutes, in recognition of which Antwerp was chosen European City of Culture 1993. Among the groups contributing to Antwerp's cultural diversity are 20,000 members of the Jewish community, the largest in Europe.

The relocation of port facilities around a newly constructed basin to the north has opened the way for redevelopment of the old wharves close to the city center. This dockland area is now the focus of Antwerp's most ambitious building project in recent times, known as "the City on the River". Architects invited to take part in a design competition submitted outline schemes, three of which have now been selected for further appraisal. Assuming plans come to fruition the old basin north of the Steen will become a residential area incorporating an open air maritime museum. The embankments on either side will also be redeveloped and a multi-level square with a subterranean arts center will be built on the site of the former south dock.

Traditionally the name Antwerp originates with a giant, Druon Antigonus, whose castle stood on the site in Roman times. He reputedly cut off the hand of any passing seafarer who refused to pay a toll, throwing the severed hand into the Scheldt. Antigonus is supposed to have been slain by the Roman Silvius Brabo who, it is said, himself hacked off one of the giant's hands and tossed it ("handwerpen") into the river. More mundane is the suggestion that the name is derived from the word "aanworp" or "aanwerpen" (meaning "thrown up ground") - referring to a piece of land which jutted out into the river abreast of the Steen and where there was once a settlement.

Whatever the truth about its name, in the second and third centuries A.D. a Gallo-Roman settlement most certainly existed on a site now occupied by part of southern Antwerp. This was followed in the fourth and fifth centuries by a Frankish village. Christian missionaries established themselves in the area around Antwerp in the seventh and eighth centuries, during which time St Amand is believed to have founded the "Infra castrum Antwerpis", destroyed by the Normans in 836. Under