Ghent

The name comes from Ganda, most likely a Celtic word for a confluence,, for the city grew where the Leie flows into the Scheldt. Around 650 Saint Amand founded two abbeys here, St Peter's and St Bavo's, and Ghent developed from these and a merchant settlement beside them. By the 13th century Ghent was Europe's leading centre of woollen cloth, employing some 4,000 weavers and 1,200 fullers. With about 50,000 people in 1300 it was one of the largest and richest cities in northern Europe.

Charles V was born in Ghent in 1500, but when the city rose against him in 1539 he punished it, made its nobles walk before him barefoot with nooses around their necks, and in 1540 demolished St Bavo's Abbey to make way for a fortress for Spanish royal troops. People from Ghent have been called Stroppendragers, "noose-bearers", ever since. After the late 16th century the city lost importance, which left its medieval centre unusually well preserved.

Industry brought a second rise. In 1800 Lieven Bauwens, who had smuggled plans for machines out of England, set up the first mechanical weaving loom on the European continent, and Ghent became a textile city. The Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States, was signed here on Christmas Eve 1814; the university followed in 1816 and a new canal to the sea in 1824–27. After Belgian independence cut the city off from the sea for more than a decade, its economy collapsed and the first Belgian trade union was born here. A world exhibition followed in 1913.

The Ghent Altarpiece, finished by 1432 and attributed to the brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck, is the city's great treasure, and its museums run from the Flemish masters at the Museum of Fine Arts to contemporary art at S.M.A.K. Nineteenth-century Ghent built an opera house and the university's Aula to designs by Louis Roelandt, and Henry van de Velde's Boekentoren gave it a modernist landmark. The beguinages and the belfry with its cloth hall are UNESCO-listed.

The calendar is crowded. The Gentse Feesten, "Gense Fieste" in local dialect, has turned the squares of the old town into ten days of stages and street performance every July since 1969, drawing 1 to 1.5 million visitors. Film Fest Gent, the country's largest film festival, has hosted the World Soundtrack Awards since 2001, the Festival of Flanders brings classical music, and every five years the Floraliën flower show fills Flanders Expo. Track cycling's big event is the Six Days of Ghent, raced at the Kuipke each November, and KAA Gent represents the city in the top football division.

The Stroppendragers nickname is worn with pride. Ghent is also a forward-looking city, with a large student population, the largest designated cycling area in Europe and a meat-free Thursday promoted in city canteens and schools, and in 2024 it was European Youth Capital.

About 270,000 people lived in the municipality at the end of 2024, making it the second most populous in Belgium, and the wider metropolitan area held about 560,000 in 2018. The city takes in suburbs such as Gentbrugge, Ledeberg, Mariakerke and Sint-Amandsberg as well as the historic centre. In the 2020 census about 35 per cent of residents had roots outside Belgium, and neighbourhoods such as Brugse Poort, Dampoort, Rabot and Ledeberg have majority populations of foreign origin, including a large Turkish community around Sleepstraat.

The port in the north of the city, reached by the Ghent–Terneuzen Canal from the Western Scheldt, is the third largest in Belgium and holds a steelworks and Volvo car and truck plants. Ghent University and research-based companies in the centre and south make the city a centre of research, and Flanders Expo is the largest event hall in Flanders.

Daily life moves by bicycle. Residents cycle to work and school on a network of nearly 400 kilometres of paths, and the car-free centre, extended in 2017, is busy with bikes, trams and pedestrians. Students set the evening rhythm, especially in the bars of the Overpoort on Wednesday and Thursday nights, while the Friday market on the Vrijdagmarkt is one of the fixed points of the week. The mayor is Mathias De Clercq.

Gentse waterzooi is the city's signature dish: a rich stew and soup made with vegetables, cream and eggs, originally with freshwater fish from the rivers and creeks around Ghent and nowadays often with chicken instead. Stoverij, the classic Flemish meat stew, is preferably made here with a generous amount of strong brown abbey beer and served with fries. The brasseries on the Korenmarkt and Vrijdagmarkt serve both, while the upmarket restaurants cluster in the Patershol.

Ghent has its own sweets and condiments. Cuberdons, cone-shaped purple sweets with a jelly filling known locally as neuzekes or Gentse neuzen, "noses", are sold by street vendors on the Korte Munt, and a feud between two of the sellers made international news. Babelutten are hard butterscotch sweets, and Tierenteyn is a spicy local mustard similar to Dijon, sold from its shop on the Groentenmarkt. Next door, hams hang from the roof timbers of the Groot Vleeshuis, the medieval meat hall.

The city is known for having a very high number of vegetarian restaurants for its population, encouraged by the meat-free Thursday campaign. The Turkish restaurants of Sleepstraat and the cheap student places around the Overpoort add to a varied, good-value food scene.