Flushing, Netherlands
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| Vlissingen | |
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| Country | Netherlands |
| Province | Zeeland |
| Area | 344.97 km² |
| - Land | 34.14 km² |
| - Water | 310.83 km² |
| Population (2005) | 45,357 |
| - Density | 1,329/km² |
Vlissingen pronunciation (help·info) (occasionally British English: Flushing) is a municipality and a city in the southwestern Netherlands on the former island of Walcheren. With its strategic location between the Scheldt river and the North Sea, Vlissingen has been an important harbour for centuries. It was granted city rights in 1315. In the 17th century Vlissingen was a main harbour for ships of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). It is also known as the birthplace of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter.
Vlissingen is mainly noted for the wharves on the Scheldt where most of the ships of the Royal Netherlands Navy (Koninklijke Marine) are built.
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[edit] History
The fishermen’s hamlet that came into existence at the estuary of the river Scheldt (Schelde) 620 A.D. has grown into a tourist attraction and into the third most important port of the Netherlands 1400 years later. Because of its favourable geographical situation, the Counts of Holland and Zeeland had the first harbours dug. Nowadays each year 50,000 ships from all corners of the world pass through the river Schelde. Tourist are very pleased with this phenomenon, because nowhere in the world ships pass this closely to the shore.
In the centuries of its growth Vlissingen was especially well known as the centre of (herring) fishery, commerce, privateering and slave trade. The history of Vlissingen is characterized by oppression, bombardments and floods. All this as a consequence of Vlissingen’s strategic position at the river Schelde.
He who ruled Vlissingen owned the most important passageway to the docks of Antwerp. For this reason the eyes of several foreign powers fell on Vlissingen. British, French, Germans and Spaniards, they were all within the city's boundaries long before the tourists were there.
The heyday of the Golden Age, in which ships from Vlissingen sailed all seas and attributed to the world power of 'De Zeven Provincien' (The Seven Provinces) was followed by a recession in the eighteenth century. Especially the effects of the Napoleonic wars were disastrous. After 1870 a period of revival occurred as a result of the building of new docks, the canal through Walcheren, the railway and the establishment of the shipyard called The Schelde. The Second World War interrupted this growth. Again bombardments, shelling and inundation heavily damaged the city.
With enormous energy the post-war reconstruction of the city was started. In the sixties the seaport and industrial area of Vlissingen-Oost were developed. Now this area is the economic driving force of central Zeeland offering many thousands of jobs.
[edit] Population centres
Vlissingen:
- Binnenstad (quarters: Oude Stad (the "Old City"), 't Eiland (the "Island"), Stadhuisplein, boulevards)
- Middengebied (quarters: Bloemenbuurt, Schildersbuurt, Bonedijke and 't Fort)
- Rosenburg
- Lammerenburg
- Paauwenburg
- Bossenburg
- Papegaaienburg
- Hofwijk
- Vrijburg
- Westerzicht
Villages within Vlissingen municipality:
- Oost-Souburg (pop. 10,500, quarters: Schoonenburg, Zeewijk)
- West-Souburg (pop. 2,400)
- Ritthem (pop. 618)
[edit] History of the name 'Vlissingen'
The derivation of the name Vlissingen is moot. Most theories relate the name to the word fles (bottle) in one way or another.
According to one story, when saint Willibrord landed in Vlissingen with a bottle in the seventh century, he shared its contents with the beggars he found there while trying to convert them. A miracle occurred, familiar to readers of hagiography, when the contents of the bottle did not diminish. When the Bishop realised the beggars did not want to listen to his words, he gave them his bottle. After that, he supposedly called the city Flessinghe.
Another source states that the name had its origins in an old ferry-service house, on which a bottle was attached by way of a sign. The monk Jacob van Dreischor, who visited the city in 967, then apparently called the ferry-house het veer aan de Flesse (the ferry at the Bottle). Because many cities in the region later received the appendix -inge, the name, according to this etymology, evolved to Vles-inge.
According to another source, the name was derived from the Danish word Vles, which means tides.
- In turn, the Dutch colony of Nieuw Vlissingen ('New Vlissingen') on the Antillian island of Tobago was definitely named for Vlissingen, as was Flushing, Queens an independent seventeenth-century township that became part of New York City in 1898.
[edit] Famous people
Admiral Michiel Adriaanszoon de Ruijter was born here.
[edit] Transport
Railway stations: Vlissingen, Vlissingen Souburg. Ferry connection to Breskens (for pedestrians and cyclists only).
[edit] External links
- Official website (in Dutch, English, and German)
- Map
- A short history of Flushing
- Port of Vlissingen
- Railway station Vlissingen:
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Borsele | Goes | Hulst | Kapelle | Middelburg | Noord-Beveland | Reimerswaal | Schouwen-Duiveland | Sluis | Terneuzen | Tholen | Veere | Vlissingen |
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| Netherlands | Provinces | Municipalities| map | |
