WEST FLANDERS

Flemish West-vlaanderen, French Flandre Occidentale the westernmost province of Belgium. It extends inland from the North Sea coast and is bounded by France on the west and south and by Hainaut, East Flanders, and The Netherlands on the east. It is divided into eight administrative arrondissementsVeurne, Ostend, Brugge, Tielt, Roeselare, Kortrijk, Ypres, and Diksmuide. It was once part of the old county of Flanders. Drained by the Yser and Leie (Lys) rivers, the province can be geographically divided into maritime Flanders and the interior plain. The former comprises the coastal area and the polders (or land reclaimed from the sea). Maritime West Flanders' straight, unembayed 42-mile (68-kilometre) coastline has broad sandy beaches backed by a rampart of sand dunes that reach as high as 100 feet (30 m) and are 1 mile (1.6 km) wide in places. Planted marram grass and conifers help to stabilize the sand. This line of dunes is broken only at the mouth of the Yser River at Ostend, near Zeebrugge, and at the mud-covered inlet of the former Zwijn estuary. Behind the dunes lies a flat plain, the Flemish polders, which are seamed with drainage channels and which extend for 610 miles (1016 km) inland. West Flanders is Belgium's leading agricultural province. Along the edge of the dunes the sandy soils grow potatoes and carrots. In the fertile polders, grass, oats, and fodder crops support extensive livestock raising (horses, cattle, pigs). Farther inland, the sand and clay alluvial deposits of the interior plain produce wheat, oats, malting barley, sugar beets, potatoes, tobacco, flax (in the Leie River valley), and fodder crops for dairy herds. In the coastal area tourism is the chief source of income, based on a string of seaside resorts, notably Ostend (a cross-Channel ferry port), Blankenberge, Knokke-Heist, and De Panne. Fishing has also gained some importance at Ostend, Nieuwpoort, and Zeebrugge. The polders are thinly populated, with only a few small market towns, such as Veurne. Brugge (Bruges) is the capital and the largest town in the province. Part of the Flemish textile industry, mainly cotton and linen at Kortrijk, Roeselare, and Menen, is centred in the Leie River valley, in the southeast. The southwestern region of West Flanders was virtually destroyed in the trench warfare of World War I, and many towns such as Ypres have been rebuilt. The province is served by railway lines, the Ghent-Brugge Canal, and numerous smaller canals. The Westhoek Natural Reserve (1957) near De Panne protects dunes, estuaries, and maritime vegetation. The silted-up Zwijn estuary has been made a bird sanctuary. Area 1,210 square miles (3,134 square km). Pop. (1992 est.) 1,111,600.