Mesen
City and municipality in Flemish Community, Belgium
Mesen (Dutch: [ˈmeːsə(n)] ⓘ; French: Messines [mɛsin], historically used in English) is a municipality and city located in the Belgian province of West Flanders. On 1 January 2006, Mesen had a total population of 988. The total area is 3.58 km2 which gives a population density of 276 inhabitants per km2.
The municipality comprises only one main settlement, the town of Mesen proper. An exclave to the west of the main territory is surrounded by the municipalities of Heuvelland and Comines-Warneton.
Villages neighbouring the municipality:
- a. Wijtschate (in the municipality of Heuvelland)
- b. Warneton (in the municipality of Comines-Warneton)
- c. Ploegsteert (in the municipality of Comines-Warneton)
Mesen is the smallest city in Belgium. It is a municipality with language facilities.
Mesen is twinned with Featherston in New Zealand in part due to the location of the New Zealand World War I Memorial, which has annual Anzac Day commemorations on 25 April.
01History
In 1062, Adela, wife of Baldwin the Pius, count of Flanders, translated the bones of Saint Sidronius from Rome to Messines.
Three battles were fought over the town during World War I (1914-1918):
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Mesen”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Mesen skyline.jpg by User:LimoWreck, CC BY 2.5
- MapMesen.svg by nl:User:LimoWreck, CC BY 2.5
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