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Flemish Diamond
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Flemish Diamond (in Dutch: Vlaamse Ruit) is a name of an area consisting of the central provinces of Flanders, Belgium. Its corner markers are the agglomerations of Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp and Leuven. Approximately 5,500,000 people live in the area.
The term is mainly an infrastructural concept of the Flemish government, for one of the larger European metropolitan areas.
The distance from Antwerp to Brussels is approx. 51 km and Mechelen is right in the middle, between Mechelen and Brussels is the city of Vilvoorde; with the harbour stretching to the north of Antwerp this has since long been recognized as a north-south major urban and industrial axis. The western triangular area of the larger cities Antwerp - Brussels - Ghent comprises the cities of Lokeren located west of Sint-Niklaas, Dendermonde and Aalst as well as the industrial area Boom - Willebroek, and is generally slightly less urbanised; such may also be true for the smaller eastern Antwerp - Brussels - Leuven triangle, comprising the city of Lier.
Thus roughly in the geometrical shape of a diamond, the term 'Vlaamse Ruit' (which has no connotation with any jewel) or 'Flemish Diamond' has become a reference to the most urbanised and industrialized (and prosperous) area in Belgium: the older industries towards the south have not been contributing to any such extent to the economy since shortly after World War II.
- (Dutch) Het belang van de Vlaamse Ruit vanuit economisch perspectief. The importance of the Flemish Diamond from an economical perspective. (Netherlands Institute of Business Organization and Strategy Research, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands)
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