Flushing, Netherlands Totally Explained

Everything about Vlissingen totally explained

Flushing (Dutch: Vlissingen ) is a municipality and a city in the southwestern Netherlands on the former island of Walcheren. With its strategic location between the Scheldt river and the North Sea, Flushing has been an important harbour for centuries. It was granted city rights in 1315. In the 17th century Flushing was a main harbour for ships of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). It is also known as the birthplace of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter.
Flushing is mainly noted for the wharves on the Scheldt where most of the ships of the Royal Netherlands Navy (Koninklijke Marine) are built.

History

The fishermen’s hamlet that came into existence at the estuary of the river Scheldt (Schelde) 620 A.D. has grown over a 1,400-year span into a tourist attraction and into the third-most important port of the Netherlands. Because of Flushing's favourable geographical situation, the Counts of Holland and Zeeland had the first harbours dug. Nowadays 50,000 ships annually from all corners of the world pass through the river Schelde. Tourists are very pleased with this phenomenon, because nowhere else in the world do ships pass this closely to the shore.
   In the centuries of its growth, Flushing was especially well known as the centre of (herring) fishing, commerce, privateering, and the slave trade. The history of Flushing is characterized by oppression, bombardments and floods. This heritage arose as a consequence of Flushing’s strategic position at the river Schelde.
   He who ruled Flushing owned the most important passageway to the docks of Antwerp. For this reason the eyes of several foreign powers fell on Flushing: the British, French, Germans and Spaniards were all within the city's boundaries long before the tourists arrived.
   The heyday of the Golden Age, in which ships from Flushing sailed all seas and contributed to the world power of 'De Zeven Provincien' (The Seven Provinces), was followed by a recession in the eighteenth century. The effects of the Napoleonic Wars were especially disastrous. After 1870, a period of revival occurred as a result of the building of new docks, the canal through Walcheren, the railway and the establishment of the shipyard called The Schelde. The Second World War interrupted this growth. Again bombardments, shelling, and inundation heavily damaged the city.
   With enormous energy the post-war reconstruction of the city began. In the sixties, development flourished in the seaport and industrial area of Flushing-Oost . Now this area is the economic driving force of central Zeeland, offering many thousands of jobs.

Population centres

Flushing:

Binnenstad (quarters: Oude Stad (the "Old City"), 't Eiland (the "Island"), Stadhuisplein, boulevards)
Middengebied (quarters: Bloemenbuurt, Schildersbuurt, Bonedijke and 't Fort)
Rosenburg
Lammerenburg
Paauwenburg
Bossenburg
Papegaaienburg
Hofwijk
Vrijburg
Westerzicht

Villages within Flushing municipality:

Oost-Souburg (pop. 10,500, quarters: Schoonenburg, Zeewijk)

West-Souburg (pop. 2,400)

Ritthem (pop. 618)

History of the name 'Flushing'

The derivation of the name Flushing is moot. Most scholars relate the name to the word fles (bottle) in one way or another.
   According to one story, when saint Willibrord landed in Flushing with a bottle in the seventh century, he shared its contents with the beggars he found there while trying to convert them. A miracle occurred, familiar to readers of hagiography, when the contents of the bottle didn't diminish. When the Bishop realised the beggars didn't want to listen to his words, he gave them his bottle. After that, he supposedly called the city Flessinghe.
   Another source states that the name had its origins in an old ferry-service house, on which a bottle was attached by way of a sign. The monk Jacob van Dreischor, who visited the city in 967, then apparently called the ferry-house het veer aan de Flesse (the ferry at the Bottle). Because many cities in the region later received the appendix -inge, the name, according to this etymology, evolved to Vles-inge.
   According to another source, the name was derived from the Danish word Vles, which means tides.

In turn, the Dutch colony of Nieuw Flushing ('New Flushing') on the Antillian island of Tobago was definitely named for Flushing, as was Flushing, Queens an independent seventeenth-century township that became part of New York City in 1898, and Flushing, Cornwall, a small village in the Carrick district of Cornwall.

Famous people

Admiral Michiel Adriaanszoon de Ruijter was born here, as well as admirals Joost van Trappen Banckert and Adriaen Banckert.

Transport

Railway stations: Flushing, Flushing Souburg. Ferry connection to Breskens (for pedestrians and cyclists only).

Further Information

Get more info on 'Vlissingen'.

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