De Panne

De Panne
	De Panne
	De Panne
State :	Belgium
Region :	Flanders
Province :	West Flanders
District :	Veurne
Coordinates :	51 ° 6 ′ N , 2 ° 36 ′ E Coordinates: 51 ° 6 ′ N , 2 ° 36 ′ E
Area :	23.90 km²
Residents:	11,176 (Jan 1, 2019)
Population density:	468 inhabitants per km²
Post Code:	8660
Prefix:	058
Mayor:	Ann Vanheste
; Local government address :	Zeelaan 21 ; 8660 De Panne
Website:	www.depanne.be

De Panne is a Belgian municipality in the province of West Flanders with 11,176 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2019). De Panne is the westernmost point of Belgium and the southernmost seaside resort on the Belgian coast and belongs to the Arrondissement Veurne .

The community consists of two sub-communities. De Panne itself is on the coast. Three kilometers further inland is the district of Adinkerke , located on the Nieuwpoort-Dunkirk Canal . The total area of the municipality is 2,390 hectares, of which 901 hectares are in De Panne and 1,489 hectares in Adinkerke.

De Panne borders the following towns and communities: Koksijde (district of St. Idesbald), Veurne and De Moeren (city of Veurne) in Belgium, Les Moëres , Ghyvelde and Bray-Dunes in France.

history

De Panne on the North Sea

The name of the place is derived from the Dutch term duinpan , which means a depression in the dunes. Already in the late Iron Age (5th to 1st century BC) people lived here from cattle breeding and salt production, and there are also people from the time of the Roman occupation (from 70 AD to 268 AD) Traces. Between the 10th and the first half of the 13th century, a medieval settlement developed, the residents of which were mainly cattle breeding, agriculture and beach fishing. Agriculture was favored by the fertile polder areas . The name of the place Adinkerke can be traced back to the twelfth century.

De Panne, on the other hand, was not created until 1782 under Austrian rule . In a letter to the surrounding communities, Emperor Joseph II wished to encourage coastal fishing, and for this reason wealthy citizens of Veurne built a settlement between the dunes and the sea, which was called Kerckepanne and Josephsdorp. The small village was added to a parish of Adinkerke in 1789 and in 1799 administratively to the municipality of Adinkerke.

Monument to Leopold I.

De Panne, painting by Gustav Schönleber (1901)

On July 17, 1831, Leopold von Sachsen-Coburg ( Leopold I ), the first king of the Belgians, set foot on Belgian soil for the first time after crossing from England to Calais in De Panne. A monument on the esplanade commemorates this event.

Around 1830 the large landowner Pieter Bortier inherited around 650 hectares of dune area in De Panne. Here he opened the first simple Pavilion des Bains in 1831 as a meeting place for the Beau-Monde from England and Veurne. Many years later he had his own summer villa built here. He tried very hard to upgrade the small and impoverished fishing village. Other large landowners, including the Ollevier family, were interested in the development of tourism . At the suggestion of Pedro Ollevier, the director of Veurnse Nationale Bank , the French entrepreneur Arthur Bonzel built today's Zeelaan (main shopping street ) around 1892 .

Although De Panne did not have a port, around 1900 it still had the second largest fleet of fishing boats on the Flemish coast after Ostend . In the absence of a port, the boats with flattened bottoms, the Panneschuiten , had to be pulled onto the beach every time. At the beginning of the 20th century there were attempts to build a harbor, but this project was ultimately not realized after his most ardent supporter, Pastor Seraphyn Dequidt, died in 1911 and the fishermen gradually disappeared from De Panne.

Accordingly, De Panne developed more and more from a fishing to a seaside resort in the second half of the 19th century and thus eventually became larger than Adinkerke itself. On February 5, 1870, the Lichtervelde - Adinkerke - Dunkirk railway line was opened. Around the same time, the first Kursaal, individual pavilions and the first guest houses and hotels were built near the Pavillon des Bains . Many villas were built in the dunes, and especially on the Kykhill dune; a development that continued even during the Art Nouveau era . As a result, De Panne - in contrast to many other places west of Ostend - still has an attractive older building stock.

Between 1892 and 1913, the first general urbanization phase took place under the direction of the architects Albert Dumont, Georges Hobé and Jozef Viérin . On July 24, 1911, De Panne was officially split off from Adinkerke, creating a new independent municipality. The electric tram ( Kusttram ) to Ostend was opened in 1928. In 1933 the coastal road Koninklijke Baan , which was inspired by King Leopold II , reached the place.

De Panne played a not insignificant role during the two world wars . During the First World War , the Grand Hôtel de l'Ocean on the sea dyke served as a front-line hospital under the direction of the Brussels surgeon Antoine Depage. The royal family stayed in De Panne during this time and King Albert I directed the Belgian troops from here, while the Belgian government settled in Le Havre , France .

The Dunkirk Veterans Memorial was erected in 1977 on Leopold I Esplanade and commemorates Operation Dynamo , which evacuated the beaches between De Panne and Gravelines (France) in May 1940; more than 330,000 Allied soldiers were withdrawn.

With the reform of the municipality on January 1st, 1977, the former mother municipality of Adinkerke was reunited with De Panne.

Population development

year	1871	1911	1936	1946	1961	1977	1981	2001
Residents	1.310	2,900	4,541	5,381	6,407	9,722	9,710	9,868
from 1977 together with Adinkerke

traffic

De Panne train station in Adinkerke

The station De Panne in Adinkerke is connected to the Belgian railway network; There are trains to and from Brussels via Ghent every hour. De Panne-Adinkerke is the western terminus of the Kusttram tram line , which was built between the World Wars and connects all places on the Belgian North Sea coast to Knokke-Heist in the east. There are also regular buses to Dunkirk in France . Most tourists, however, get to De Panne via the A 16 (E 40) motorway, which, which has been successively expanded over the last 20 years, leads along the West Flanders coast to France ( Calais ) and has been an important west-east route since the opening of the Eurotunnel. Represents transit route.

Attractions

Dunes in the De Westhoek nature reserve

The Leopold I. Esplanade

De Nachtegaal nature park center

Around De Panne there are around a third of all dunes on the Belgian North Sea coast . The municipality of De Panne includes various nature reserves such as De Westhoek (340 hectares), which has been a landscape area since 1935 and a nature reserve since 1957 . There are also the Houtsaegerduinen and the Kerkepannebos forest (86 hectares), the Oosthoekduinen reserve (approx. 80 hectares), the Calmeynbos forest (85 hectares) and the Krakeelduinen . The nature park center De Nachtegaal (The Nightingale) with a museum is located between the Calmeynbos and the Oosthoek dunes . Within these parks and reserves one can undertake extensive hikes on laid out paths.

Walks are also worthwhile along the 2.5 kilometer long sea dike. De Panne beach has no breakwaters and, at 450 m at low tide, is the widest on the Belgian coast. This makes De Panne ideal for sand sailing , which was invented here when the Dumont brothers introduced the first sand yacht in 1898.

The amusement park Plopsaland (formerly: Meli-Park ) is located in the Adinkerke sub-community and can be easily reached from the train station. The coastal tram also stops in front of the park.

On July 17, 1831, Leopold I, the first king of the Belgians, coming by carriage from Calais, set foot on Belgian soil for the first time in De Panne. The Leopold I. Esplanade and a monument commemorate this event.

The St. Petruskirche is a neo-Gothic hall church . Its first part was built in 1860, but the towers were not built until 1934. There is also the so-called Koninklijke Kapel (Royal Chapel - so named because King Albert I was a frequent guest during the First World War) and the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk , a neo-Romanesque church from 1930, which was one of the forerunners of the modern Churches on the Belgian west coast was built.

Sports

Since De Panne is considered the birthplace of sand yachting and the wide and breakwater-free beach is very suitable for it, many important international races and championships in sand yachting are held here. In addition, the internationally well-attended cycle race “ Three Days of De Panne ” takes place every spring .

and display information about the image

Panoramic view of the beach

literature

Serge Van Damme: Architectuurgids De Panne, 50 architecturale done van het verleden en heden van de badplaats . De Panne 2002, 64 p.
Serge Van Damme: De Panne, beeld voor beeld. Alongside the beeldhouwwerken en commemorative plaques from De Panne en Adinkerke. De Panne 2005, 64 p.
Christophe Delrive: Erfgoedgids, 12 architecturale pareltjes in de Dumontwijk van De Panne . De Panne 2013. (Vouwfolder)

Web links

Commons : De Panne - collection of images, videos and audio files

Official website