![[Flag of Knokke-Heist]](../images/b/be-vwvkh.gif)
Last modified: 2005-11-12 by ivan sache
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Municipal flag of Knokke-Heist - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 21 July 2005
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The municipality of Knokke-Heist is located on the North Sea, close to the border with the Netherlands. It is made of the former municipalities of Knokke, Heist, Ramskapelle and Westkapelle, merged together in 1970.
Knokke is the north-easternmost sea-side resort of the Belgian coast.
It is separated from the Dutch territory by the natural reserve of
Zwin. Knokke is considered to be the most exclusive beach city in
Belgium, primarily because of Knokke-Het Zoute (in French,
Knokke-le-Zoute), an area of splendid villas where the Belgian jet-set
feels at home.
The legend says that a group of Irish pilgrims, monks and villains
settled in the area between the VIth and the IXth century. One of them,
the monk Guthago, lived a pious life and died in the village mentioned
as Cnoc.
Knokke indeed came into existence because of the construction of dikes
that were meant to protect the area around the Zwin sea-arm. In 1640
the settlement had a population of about 200. At the independence of
Belgium in 1830, Knokke was still predominantly a rural area consisting
of a few hamlets. Already then, the place started to attract artists,
a lot of them painters (such as James Ensor, Alfred Verwee and others).
The artists rented a small miller's cottage and founded there the
Cercle des Artistes in 1880. At the beginning of the XXth century,
Knokke rapidly changed into an rather select sea-side resort when the
first hotels were built.
The Knokke Casino was built in 1929-1930 and thoroughly renovated
after the Second World War. The Casino is worthwhile for its splendid
interior decoration. Next to the impressive chandelier, the biggest in
Europe (diameter: 8.5 m; height: 6,5m; weight: 7,000 kg; 22,000 pieces
of glass and 2,700 lamps), there are wall-paintings from Paul Delvaux
(1983), Keith Haring and René Magritte (1953) as well as multicolored
sculptures by Niki de Saint Phalle. Inside the gambling room are wall
tapestries made by Jean Lurçat. A real gastronomic institution in
Knokke is the waffle-house Mother Siska. Already in 1892 Siska made her
delicious waffles for the visitors of Knokke. Her twelve children
continued the tradition. The speciality of the house are the
five-heart-shaped waffles.
In 1977, Jacques Brel recorded the song Knokke-le-Zoute Tango. It tells the story of a guy dreaming of being Argentinian or Spanish and having all kinds of women, but in fact coming home alone under the rain:
[...]
Non ce soir
Il pleut sur Knokke-le-Zoute
Ce soir comme tous les soirs
Je me rentre chez moi
Le coeur en déroute
Et la bitte sous l'bras.
[...]
No, this evening
It rains over Knokke-le-Zoute
This evening like every evening
I come back home
With routed heart
And the dick under the arm.
In 1953, Jacques Brel, then an unsuccessful singer, took part to a song contest in Knokke-Het-Zouten and was ranked 27th out of 28 competitors. The same year, he was hired in Paris by Jacques Canetti (the brother of the Nobel Prize of litterature Elias Canetti) in his cabaret Les Trois Baudets (The Three Donkeys). Canetti produced Brel's first record in 1954 but success started really only in 1959 after a concert on 5 November in the Bobino music-hall. Brel left the scene in 1967, without any warning, after a memorable concert in Olympia, played in a few movies and emigrated to the Marquesas Islands, in French Polynesia. He came back to Paris in 1977, where he registered his last record, simply called Brel, including Jaurès, La Ville s'endormait, Vieillir, Le Bon Dieu, Les F.. , Orly, Les Remparts de Varsovie, Voir un Ami Pleurer, Knokke-Le-Zoute Tango, Jojo, Le Lion and Les Marquises. Brel died a few weeks after the release of the record.
The Zwin is a silte dup sea-arm which linked in the Middle-Ages the
wealthy city of Bruges to the North Sea.The progressive silting up of
the Zwin caused the economical decline of Bruges. The nature reserve of
Zwin is situated on the coast (2.3 km) between Knokke and the Dutch
border (125 ha in Belgium and 33 ha in the Netherlands). It is
protected by a row of dunes. Near the border between the two countries,
a 250-m wide breach in the dunes is followed by a channel called
slufter. The channel branches into smaller creeks filled with sea
water and refreshed with silt at high tide. There are also salt marshes
flooded only during spring tide.
During the set up of the Delta Plan following the big flood of the 1st
February 1953, the dike protecting the Zwin was heightened. Count Leon
Lippens, owner of the real estate Het Zoute company and builder of the
Knokke sea resort, dug big ponds in the marshes, called the Western
Lakes, with artificial islands for bird nesting. Gates allow to keep
always water in the lakes, even during dry periods.
The emblematic component of the Zwin ecosystem is the endangered sea
lavender (Limonium vulgare, aka Statice limonium), which blooms in
carpets in summmer.
Sources:
Ivan Sache, 21 July 2005
The municipal flag of Knokke-Heist is horizontally divided
yellow-red-yellow with three white scallops placed horizontally in the
red stripe.
According to Gemeentewapens in België - Vlaanderen en Brussel, the flag was adopted by the Municipal Council on 23 March
1981, confirmed by Royal Decree on 2 February 1982 and published in the
Belgian municipal gazette on 21 April 1982 and 4 January 1995.
The flag is designed after the municipal arms, which are:
Or a chevron gules three scallops argent a thistle in base.
On the flag, the thistle is omitted and the chevron is changed into a fess.
Arnaud Leroy, Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 21 July 2005