Oostende - Eurocities
Ostend is a medium-sized Belgian city, which has all the assets of a large town, thanks to its success as a seaside resort and busy trade centre. The presence of a seaport and an airport are very important economical strengths.
The Port of Ostend is situated in Europe’s busiest maritime area. The port has recently been modernised in both infrastructure and organisation and changed his focus to the development of renewable energy projects in the port. Ostend is also home to an international freight and passenger airport. The multi modal function is further
emphasized by the presence of comprehensive railroad infrastructure (www.nmbs.be), of a canal leading up to the European inland waterway network and of course the motorway A10-E40 linked directly to the port Terminals.
Ostend has 72.000 inhabitants of 130 nationalities and a surface of 37,7km². It is the main city at the Belgian coastline and its population keeps growing. Also, the city is attractive Tourism is one of the economical strengths of the city. In 2013 Ostend had 1,8 million stayovers in the city and 4 million daytrips. On topdays the population explodes untill 300.000 people.
Except the sea as one of its major attractors, Ostend has lots of other highlights in art, culture, leisure, sports and…nature.
In 2013 Ostend won the “Thuis in de stad” (the most important award for successful city projects in Flanders) award with the project: “Groen lint” (the Emerald Necklace/Green belt). “Groen lint” was part of a European project “21th Century Parks” and combines and develops different pieces of precious nature to one serried green necklace.
Ostend has a lot of goals and aims for the next decennium. Via Eurocities we would like to share our knowledge but above all learn from many best practices in Europe. We hope to develop some sustainable partnerships with
European cities for the benefit of all citizens, in Ostend but also Belgium and Europe.
On this webpage we share some best practices from the municipality and our partners in the city.
- Application Eurocities
- Best practices and future projects for a digital city hall: Digital for the ones who wants it, personal for the ones who need it
- Digital Culture – a creative Europe Project Proposal (in search for a north, south and east European partner)
- “Baken” – an e-inclusion project from the public library
- 21th century parks - Groen Lint - masterplan 2013 (pdf)
- Green bridge (pdf)
- Project Culture for waterfronts