Sint Niklaas

Sint-Niklaas grew around a church dedicated to Saint Nicholas, founded in 1217 in the Flemish region of Waas. It became an administrative centre for the surrounding district, and its unusually spacious market square preserves the extent of land granted to the parish by Countess Margaret II in 1248. The town lay between Ghent and Antwerp, close to the Scheldt, but had no walls to protect it.

Fire and plunder struck Sint-Niklaas in 1381. Its position nevertheless favoured recovery, and by 1513 it had obtained the right to hold a weekly market. Flax and wool industries supported growth in the seventeenth century, when religious communities also established houses providing education and care. Another great fire destroyed much of the town in 1690; in the eighteenth century its textile makers added cotton to their production.