Ghent, a historic town which originated at the confluence of the rivers Scheldt and Lys, is a city of towers and rivers.
Ghent is a high-grade working environment and residential city, boasting considerable assets as a place of business. With 230.000 inhabitants and a strong economic bearing surface, Ghent is the second largest city in Flanders, ranking third in Belgium.
Ghent is a pleasant living, working and leisure centre. The city possesses a widely diversified and well-balanced economic structure: production, distribution, offices, catering industry, trade and services, recreation and sports, tourism, agriculture and ornamental plant cultivation.
The presence of a sea port certainly creates interesting opportunities.
As key education centre of Flanders with a rich historic and cultural offer, Ghent wishes to present itself as a “city of knowledge and culture”.
Situated in the heart of Flanders, our city is part of the major economic Flemish network, called the Flemish Diamond, shaped up by Ghent, Brussels, Leuven and Antwerp.
This network is situated on the crossroads of other strong economic areas such as Randstad Holland in the north, the Ruhr in the east, the French metropolises Paris and Lille-Roubaix-Tourcoing in the south.
Ghent is situated at the intersection of the two major European motorways E40 (London-Istanbul) / E17 (Lisbon-Stockholm), with smooth connections to the rest of the European road system.
Ghent boasts a major sea port, accessible to ships of 80.000 deadweight capacity.
Moreover, Ghent is centrally located within the inland navigation network to France, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland.
Ghent is also connected to the high-speed train network. The airports of Brussels and Antwerp give access to the rest of Europe.
In short, Ghent boasts a fully developed multi-modal infrastructure, which makes cities in Europe and in other parts of the world easily accessible for passenger travel and goods transport.
