Description

This district has been created in 1963 from the 9 municipalities (and parts of other municipalities) with a French speaking majority, belonging to the Province West-Flanders, and who did pass at the same moment to the Province Hainaut. As they do have a Dutch speaking minority, they dao have a specific linguistic regime.

Very specific for this district is that it is splitted in two parts, separated by French territory (the metropole of Lille). And oriented towards three cities: Lille (French), Tournai (Walloon) and Kortrijk (Flemish).

This coomplicated situation is one of the heritages of the "unfinished" conquest by the French Kings in 1500-1800 of parts of the County of Flanders. And has been simplified in 1977, when the municipalities of each part did regroup in one municipality.

Territorial Subdivisions

• 1963-1976

  The district was created with the following municipalities:
  • Mouscron (including part of Rekkem in 1963 and the following municipalities in 1997)
    • Luingne
    • Dottignies (Dottenijs)
    • Herseaux
  • Comines (part of if did pass to Wervik in 1963 and the following municipalities have been incorporated in 1997)
    • Houthem
    • Bas-Warneton
    • Ploegsteert
    • Warneton (Waasten)

• 1977-now

  The district is subdivided in the following two municipalities:
  • Comines (Komen) (renamed in 1983 Comines-Warneton/Komen-Waasten)
  • Mouscron (Moeskroen)

Short History with Bibliography

Sources

Repositories

Societies

Migration / Emigration / Immigration

Families and Family Histories

Sciences

This web site is the collective work of the subscribers to the mail list BELGIUM-ROOTS-L founded June 1998 by Georges Picavet (see our members page and the copyrights page for more info) Q:\webbeta\rw_belgiumroots\bel\5hai\54\index.html (br_bel_wht) This Global file was last updated 18/01/2007 23:48:09 CET and uploaded Thursday, 18-Jan-2007 16:11:18 MST