Campine

The Kempen (also Kempen, WL n. Campine ) are a flat sandy and heathland in the Belgian provinces of Antwerp and Limburg and south of the Dutch province of North Brabant.

The area extends from the town of Lier, 20 km east of Antwerp, southwest of Eindhoven and west of Maaseik. The capital of the Kempen Turnhout.

The Romans gave this sandy border district on the Maas the name Campina (fields ), hence comes the present-day Dutch term Kempen.

Metallurgy and mining

Because of the sandy bottom Kempen was to the 19th century a poor agrarian area, where agriculture was hardly worth. Larger cities were missing.

Mid to late 19th century, various metal factories settled in the sparsely populated area. Although this acted to strongly contaminating zinc factories as in Lommel, Balen, Overpelt, Olen and Budel, also a Arsenikfabrik in Bocholt, one was happy about all the new jobs. The impurity acts on these places after today. Thus, it is forbidden to drink their own groundwater.

1901 was discovered ( steenkoolbekken Dutch Kempen ) in the Limburg coal coal mining area. In Kempen was temporarily one of the five Belgian coalfields. The mid-1960s encouraged the six local mines per year 10 million tons of coal (compared to the 36 coal mines in the French-speaking region ( Wallonia ) promoted about the same amount ).

Eindhoven industrialization and a continued population growth developed in the course largely due to the growth of the company Philips to a big city.

Footnotes

• Region in the Netherlands
• Geography (Belgium )
• Region in Flanders
• Geography (North Brabant)