The Damme Canal (French: Canal de Damme. Dutch: Damse Vaart or Napoleonvaart) is a canal in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The canal links Bruges with the Western Scheldt at Sluis, Netherlands. It was constructed on the orders of Napoleon Bonaparte who wished to create a canal network in order to permit the efficient transport of troops without the risk of disruptive interventions from the British navy.
French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) has largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French.
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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe. It is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of 30,688 km2 (11,849 sq mi) and has a population of more than 11.4 million. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi and Liège.
Following the defeat of Napoleon, the original strategic imperative for the canal was removed. The plans in the Napoleonic era had called for a link to the Scheldt at Breskens. Half a century later the canal opened to traffic in 1856, and the link with the sea had moved to Sluis.
Breskens is a harbour town on the Westerschelde in the municipality of Sluis in the province of Zeeland, in the south-western Netherlands. Its population is 4,787.
Sluis is a town and municipality located in the west of Zeelandic Flanders, in the south-western Dutch province of Zeeland.
At Damme the canal crosses the Leopold Canal and the Schipdonk Canal, both of which were dug in the middle years of the nineteenth century in order to reduce the vulnerability of the Belgian canal network to Dutch interference, after the achievement in 1830 of Belgian independence. It was necessary to create a system of Siphons because of the differences in water level of the three canals. The canal was used until 1940 when French troops destroyed the siphon system: this put an end to maritime transport on the Damme Canal.
Damme is a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders, six kilometres northeast of Brugge (Bruges). The municipality comprises the city of Damme proper and the villages of Hoeke, Lapscheure, Moerkerke, Oostkerke, Sijsele, Vivenkapelle, and Sint-Rita. On 1 January 2006, the municipality had a population of 10,899. The total area is 89.52 km², giving a population density of 122 inhabitants per km².
The Leopold Canal is a canal in northern Belgium. Construction occurred between 1847 and 1850 after the Belgian government granted permission in 1846. It runs about 40 km (25 mi) westward from Boekhoute to Heist-aan-Zee just south of the Dutch border. It is between 1.2 and 2.3 m deep. The canal was proposed by Canon Joseph Andries, local member of the Belgian National Congress, to prevent the Dutch from blocking the discharge of water and inundating the Meetjesland after Belgium's independence from the Netherlands.
The Schipdonk Canal is a canal in the Belgian provinces of East Flanders and West Flanders. With a length of 56 km (35 mi), the canal runs in a northerly direction from Deinze, turning to a north-western direction roughly halfway along its route to the North Sea with which it meets on the coast near to Heist. It crosses both the Gent-Bruges Canal and for its final 20 km (12 mi) runs parallel with the Leopold Canal as it approaches the north Belgian coast. For most of this final section the two canals are separated only by a dyke.
After World War II use of the canal resumed, but it was used now by pleasure boats, along with a tourist boat connecting Damme and Bruges.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from more than 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 70 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country, and the seventh largest city of the country by population.
Transport in Belgium is facilitated with well-developed road, air, rail and water networks. The rail network has 2,950 km (1,830 mi) of electrified tracks. There are 118,414 km (73,579 mi) of roads, among which there are 1,747 km (1,086 mi) of motorways, 13,892 km (8,632 mi) of main roads and 102,775 km (63,861 mi) of other paved roads. There is also a well-developed urban rail network in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Charleroi. The ports of Antwerp and Bruges-Zeebrugge are two of the biggest seaports in Europe. Brussels Airport is Belgium's biggest airport.
The Scheldt is a 350-kilometre (220 mi) long river in northern France, western Belgium, and the southwestern part of the Netherlands. Its name is derived from an adjective corresponding to Old English sceald ("shallow"), Modern English shoal, Low German schol, West Frisian skol, and Swedish (obsolete) skäll ("thin").
Walcheren is a region and former island in the Dutch province of Zeeland at the mouth of the Scheldt estuary. It lies between the Eastern Scheldt in the north and the Western Scheldt in the south and is roughly the shape of a rhombus. The two sides facing the North Sea consist of dunes and the rest of its coastline is made up of dykes. Middelburg, the provincial capital, lies at Walcheren's center. Vlissingen, 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) to the south, is the main harbour and the third municipality is Veere.
Zeelandic Flanders is the southernmost region of the province of Zeeland in the south-western Netherlands. It lies south of the Western Scheldt that separates the region from the remainder of Zeeland and the Netherlands to the north. Zeelandic Flanders is bordered to the south by Belgium.
Zuid-Beveland is part of the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands north of the Western Scheldt and south of the Eastern Scheldt.
The Scheldt–Rhine Canal (Schelde-Rijnkanaal) in Belgium and the Netherlands connects Antwerp with the Volkerak, and thereby the Scheldt with the Rhine.
The Siege of Antwerp was an engagement between the German and the Belgian, British and French armies around the fortified city of Antwerp during World War I. German troops besieged a garrison of Belgian fortress troops, the Belgian field army and the British Royal Naval Division in the Antwerp area, after the German invasion of Belgium in August 1914. The city, which was ringed by forts known as the National Redoubt, was besieged to the south and east by German forces. The Belgian forces in Antwerp conducted three sorties in late September and early October, which interrupted German plans to send troops to France, where reinforcements were needed to counter the French armies and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).
Koolkerke is small district of Bruges in the province of West Flanders in Belgium.
The Zwin is a nature reserve at the North Sea coast, on the Belgian-Dutch border. It consists of the entrance area of a former tidal inlet which during the Middle Ages connected the North Sea with the ports of Sluis and Bruges inland.
Aardenburg is a small city close to the Dutch border with Belgium. It is part of the Sluis Municipality, located in the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands. Its medieval name was Rodenburgh.
The port of Ghent is the third biggest port in Belgium. The first port of Ghent was situated at the Scheldt river and later on at the river Leie. Since the Middle Ages Ghent has sought for a connection to the sea. In the 13th century via the Lieve canal to the Zwin near Damme, in the 16th century via the Sassevaart, in the 17th century via the Ghent-Bruges Canal. Since the 19th century by the Ghent–Terneuzen Canal which connects via the Western Scheldt to the North Sea. The port of Ghent is accessible by ships of the Panamax size, and in February 2015 the construction of a new lock at Terneuzen was announced, which will maintain near-parity with those of the Panama Canal expansion project.
The Brussels–Scheldt Maritime Canal, is a canal in Belgium linking Brussels with the Scheldt river and ultimately the sea. The 28 km long canal has a width of 30 m. and a draught of 2 m., and connects the cities of Brussels and Willebroek, where it joins the Rupel river in the hamlet of Klein-Willebroek. Hence previously the canal was officially known as the Brussels-Rupel Maritime Canal prior to the establishment of a direct link with the Scheldt in 1997.
Male Castle is a former castle in Male, once a separate village, now part of Sint-Kruis, a suburb of Bruges, West Flanders, Belgium. The buildings, almost entirely rebuilt and restored after the destruction of World War II, have housed St. Trudo's Abbey (Sint-Trudoabdij) since 1954.
The Franco-Flemish War was a conflict between the Kingdom of France and the County of Flanders between 1297 and 1305.
The Bocholt–Herentals Canal is a canal in Belgium that links the Zuid-Willemsvaart at Bocholt with the Albert Canal in Herentals, with a length of slightly over 60 kilometres. It is one of the seven canals linking the rivers Meuse and Scheldt.
The Siege of Sluis (1604) also known as the Sluis Campaign or the Battle of the Oostburg Line was a series of military actions that took place during the Eighty Years' War and the Anglo–Spanish War from 19 May to 19 August 1604. A States and English army under Prince Maurice of Orange and Horace Vere respectively crossed the Scheldt estuary and advanced on land taking Cadzand, Aardenburg and IJzendijke in the Spanish Netherlands. This soon led to the culmination of the siege of the Spanish held inland port of Sluis.
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Coordinates: 51°16′49″N3°18′50″E / 51.28028°N 3.31389°E
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.