London bankers were too small to operate on that scale, and Antwerp had a highly efficient bourse that itself attracted rich bankers from around Europe. After the s, the city's banking business declined: England ended its borrowing in Antwerp in Fernand Braudel states that Antwerp became "the centre of the entire international economy, something Bruges had never been even at its height. During the first half of the 16th century Antwerp grew to become the second-largest European city north of the Alps.
Many foreign merchants were resident in the city. Francesco Guicciardini , the Florentine envoy, stated that hundreds of ships would pass in a day, and 2, carts entered the city each week. Portuguese ships laden with pepper and cinnamon would unload their cargo. According to Luc-Normand Tellier "It is estimated that the port of Antwerp was earning the Spanish crown seven times more revenues than the Spanish colonization of the Americas".
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Without a long-distance merchant fleet, and governed by an oligarchy of banker-aristocrats forbidden to engage in trade, the economy of Antwerp was foreigner-controlled, which made the city very cosmopolitan, with merchants and traders from Venetian Republic , Republic of Genoa , Republic of Ragusa , Spain and Portugal.
Antwerp had a policy of toleration, which attracted a large crypto- Jewish community composed of migrants from Spain and Portugal. By , the Portuguese had established Antwerp as one of their main shipping bases, bringing in spices from Asia and trading them for textiles and metal goods. The city's trade expanded to include cloth from England, Italy and Germany, wines from Germany, France and Spain, salt from France, and wheat from the Baltic. The city's skilled workers processed soap, fish, sugar, and especially cloth. Banks helped finance the trade, the merchants, and the manufacturers.
The city was a cosmopolitan center; its bourse opened in , "To the merchants of all nations. Antwerp experienced three booms during its golden age: the first based on the pepper market, a second launched by American silver coming from Seville ending with the bankruptcy of Spain in , and a third boom, after the stabilising Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis in , based on the textiles industry.
In the century after , the city's economy and population declined dramatically The Portuguese merchants left in , and there was much less trade in English cloth. Numerous financial bankruptcies began around Amsterdam replaced Antwerp as the major trading center for the region. The religious revolution of the Reformation erupted in violent riots in August , as in other parts of the Low Countries. When the Eighty Years' War broke out in , commercial trading between Antwerp and the Spanish port of Bilbao collapsed and became impossible.
Subsequently, the city joined the Union of Utrecht in and became the capital of the Dutch Revolt. In , Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza , captured it after a long siege and as part of the terms of surrender its Protestant citizens were given two years to settle their affairs before quitting the city. Antwerp's banking was controlled for a generation by Genoa , and Amsterdam became the new trading centre. This impediment remained in force until , although the provisions were relaxed during French rule from to , and also during the time Belgium formed part of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands to However, he was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo before he could see the plan through.
During this attack the town was further damaged. Antwerp was the first city to host the World Gymnastics Championships , in The Siege of Antwerp lasted for 11 days, but the city was taken after heavy fighting by the German Army, and the Belgians were forced to retreat westwards. Antwerp remained under German occupation until the Armistice. Antwerp hosted the Summer Olympics. During World War II , the city was an important strategic target because of its port.
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After this, the Germans attempted to destroy the Port of Antwerp , which was used by the Allies to bring new material ashore. Thousands of Rheinbote , V-1 and V-2 missiles were fired more V-2s than used on all other targets during the entire war combined , causing severe damage to the city but failed to destroy the port due to poor accuracy.
After the war, Antwerp, which had already had a sizeable Jewish population before the war, once again became a major European centre of Haredi and particularly Hasidic Orthodox Judaism. A Ten-Year Plan for the port of Antwerp — expanded and modernized the port's infrastructure with national funding to build a set of canal docks.
The broader aim was to facilitate the growth of the north-eastern Antwerp metropolitan region, which attracted new industry based on a flexible and strategic implementation of the project as a co-production between various authorities and private parties. The plan succeeded in extending the linear layout along the Scheldt river by connecting new satellite communities to the main strip. Starting in the s, Antwerp rebranded itself as a world-class fashion centre. It emerged from organized tourism and mega-cultural events.
The municipality comprises the city of Antwerp proper and several towns. It is divided into nine entities districts :. In , in preparation of the year development plan for the Port of Antwerp , the municipalities of Berendrecht-Zandvliet-Lillo were integrated into the city territory and lost their administrative independence.
During the merger of municipalities, conducted by the Belgian government as an administrative simplification, the municipalities of Berchem , Borgerhout , Deurne , Ekeren , Hoboken , Merksem and Wilrijk were merged into the city. At that time the city was also divided into the districts mentioned above. Simultaneously, districts received an appointed district council; later district councils became elected bodies.
In the 16th century, Antwerp was noted for the wealth of its citizens "Antwerpia nummis". However, fire has destroyed several old buildings, such as the house of the Hanseatic League on the northern quays, in Although Antwerp was formerly a fortified city, hardly anything remains of the former enceinte , only some remains of the city wall can be seen near the Vleeshuis museum at the corner of Bloedberg and Burchtgracht. A replica of a castle named Steen has been partly rebuilt near the Scheldt-quais in the 19th century.
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Antwerp's development as a fortified city is documented between the 10th and the 20th century. The fortifications were developed in different phases:.
This is the population of the city of Antwerp only, not of the larger current municipality of the same name. At present, about 15, Haredi Jews, many of them Hasidic , live in Antwerp. Antwerp has an extensive network of synagogues, shops, schools and organizations. Rabbi Chaim Kreiswirth , chief rabbi of the Machsike Hadas community, who died in , was arguably one of the better known personalities to have been based in Antwerp.
An attempt to have a street named after him has received the support of the Town Hall and is in the process of being implemented. The Jains in Belgium are estimated to be around about 1, people. The majority live in Antwerp, mostly involved in the very lucrative diamond business. There are significant Armenian communities that reside in Antwerp, many of them are descendants of traders who settled during the 19th century. One of the important sectors that Armenian communities in Antwerp excel and involved in is the diamond trade business, [56] [57] [58] [59] that based primarily in the diamond district.
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According to the American Association of Port Authorities , the port of Antwerp was the seventeenth largest by tonnage port in the world in and second only to Rotterdam in Europe. It handled Importantly it handles high volumes of economically attractive general and project cargo , as well as bulk cargo. Antwerp's docklands, with five oil refineries , are home to a massive concentration of petrochemical industries, second only to the petrochemical cluster in Houston , Texas.
There is a wind farm in the northern part of the port area. There are plans to extend this in the period — Antwerp's other great mainstay is the diamond trade that takes place largely within the diamond district. The industry never disappeared from Antwerp, and even experienced a second boom in the early twentieth century. By the year , Antwerp had over 13, diamond finishers.
A six-lane motorway bypass encircles much of the city centre and runs through the urban residential area of Antwerp. The banks of the Scheldt are linked by three road tunnels in order of construction : the Waasland Tunnel , the Kennedy Tunnel and the Liefkenshoek Tunnel Daily congestion on the Ring led to a fourth high-volume highway link called the " Oosterweelconnection " being proposed. It would have entailed the construction of a long viaduct and bridge the Lange Wapper over the docks on the north side of the city in combination with the widening of the existing motorway into a lane motorway; these plans were eventually rejected in a public referendum.
In September the Flemish Government decided to replace the bridge by a series of tunnels. There are ideas to cover the Ring in a similar way as happened around Paris, Hamburg, Madrid and other cities. This would reconnect the city with its suburbs and would provide development opportunities to accommodate part of the foreseen population growth in Antwerp which currently are not possible because of the pollution and noise generated by the traffic on the Ring.
An old plan to build an R2 outer ring road outside the built up urban area around the Antwerp agglomeration for port related traffic and transit traffic never materialized. Antwerp is the focus of lines to the north to Essen and the Netherlands, east to Turnhout, south to Mechelen, Brussels and Charleroi, and southwest to Ghent and Ostend. Antwerp Central station is an architectural monument in itself, and is mentioned in W G Sebald 's haunting novel Austerlitz. Prior to the completion in of a tunnel that runs northwards under the city centre to emerge at the old Antwerp Dam station, Central was a terminus.
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Trains from Brussels to the Netherlands had to either reverse at Central or call only at Berchem station, 2 kilometres 1 mile to the south, and then describe a semicircle to the east, round the Singel. Now, they call at the new lower level of the station before continuing in the same direction. Antwerp is also home to Antwerpen-Noord, the largest classification yard for freight in Belgium and second largest in Europe.
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The majority of freight trains in Belgium depart from or arrive here. It has two classification humps and over a hundred tracks. The city has a web of tram and bus lines operated by De Lijn and providing access to the city centre, suburbs and the Left Bank. The tram network has 12 lines, of which the underground section is called the " premetro " and includes a tunnel under the river.
The Franklin Rooseveltplaats functions as the city's main hub for local and regional bus lines. A small airport, Antwerp International Airport , is located in the district of Deurne , with passenger service to various European destinations. A bus service connects the airport to the city centre. This office is also CityJet 's Antwerp office.
Belgium's major international airport , Brussels Airport , is about 45 kilometres 28 miles from the city of Antwerp, and connects the city worldwide. It is connected to the city centre by bus, and also by train. The new Diabolo rail connection provides a direct fast train connection between Antwerp and Brussels Airport as of the summer of There is also a direct rail service between Antwerp calling at Central and Berchem stations and Charleroi South station, with a connecting buslink to Brussels South Charleroi Airport , which runs twice every hour on working days.