Districts of Antwerp

The Belgian city of Antwerp consists of nine former municipalities (called deelgemeenten) which have the special status of district.

Most Belgian municipalities are made up of former municipalities that were merged in the past. These deelgemeenten do not have any political meaning, only the "larger" municipality have elected councils.

However, Article 41 of the Belgian Constitution provides the possibility of implementing districts for any municipality with at least 100,000 inhabitants. In such cases the districts have elected "district councils" and a "district college". Only the city of Antwerp made use of this provision.

Other cities that can theoretically implement this are Ghent and Bruges in Flanders; Charleroi, Liège and Namur in Wallonia; and the City of Brussels, Anderlecht and Schaerbeek in Brussels. Anderlecht and Schaerbeek do not however contain other former municipalities. Relatedly, there have been proposals to merge the 19 municipalities of Brussels into one single municipality.

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