Bruges

Bruges (Dutch Brugge, French Bruges) is the capital of the province of West Flanders in Belgium. The municipality borders the Belgian coast with the district of Zeebrugge. Bruges is also the episcopal see of the diocese of Bruges. With 118,325 inhabitants (as of 1 January 2019), it is the largest city in the province. The arrondissement of Bruges includes other municipalities and ranks second in the province, behind the arrondissement of Kortrijk, with about 280,000 inhabitants.

In the late Middle Ages, the region around Bruges was one of the centres of the textile industry and long-distance trade in Europe and thus one of the birthplaces of early capitalism. The city was at times the residence of the Dukes of Burgundy, under whose rule Bruges became one of the economically and culturally richest cities in Europe at the time.

The old town is surrounded by ramparts, on which windmills stand, and canals. Since Bruges was never destroyed by wars or large-scale fires, the medieval townscape and historic buildings are very well preserved. The city can be explored both on foot and by boat. The canals that run through the city are called Reien by the locals after the Reie river, which was completely canalized in the Middle Ages and connected Bruges directly to the North Sea.

The medieval city centre was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. In 2002 Bruges was European Capital of Culture.

Bruges has an important seaport in the Zeebrugge district and is home to the College of Europe.

Name

An origin from a West Germanic word for "bridge" is likely. Several similar words are mentioned in ancient documents in various Germanic languages, e.g. Old English bryċġ > bridge, Old Saxon bruggia, Old High German brucca, Old Norse bryggja, all of which probably go back to the Germanic *bruʒjō.

Districts

• Bruges city centre, Sint-Pieters and Sint-Jozef (I)
• Koolkerke (II)
• Sint-Andries (III)
• Sint-Michiels (IV)
• Assebroek (V)
• Sint-Kruis (VI)
• Dudzele (VII)
• Lissewege, Zeebrugge and Zwankendamme (VIII)