Tessenderlo

Tessenderlo
Municipality
Chemical plant and rail yard in Tessenderlo
Flag Coat of arms
Tessenderlo Location in Belgium
Location of Tessenderlo in Limburg
Coordinates: 51°04′N 05°05′E / 51.067°N 5.083°E / 51.067; 5.083Coordinates: 51°04′N 05°05′E / 51.067°N 5.083°E / 51.067; 5.083
Country	Belgium
Community	Flemish Community
Region	Flemish Region
Province	Limburg
Arrondissement	Hasselt
Government
• Mayor	Fons Verwimp (sp.a)
• Governing party/ies	sp.a, OpenVLD, SPiL
Area
• Total	51.35 km2 (19.83 sq mi)
Population (1 January 2016)
• Total	18,403
• Density	360/km2 (930/sq mi)
Postal codes	3980
Area codes	013
Website	www.tessenderlo.be

Tessenderlo is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg. It is where the three Belgian provinces of Limburg, Flemish Brabant and Antwerp meet at the front gate of the Averbode Abbey. The municipality Tessenderlo encompasses the villages of Tessenderlo proper, Schoot, Engsbergen, Hulst and Berg. On January 1, 2006, Tessenderlo had a total population of 16,811. The total area is 51.35 km² which gives a population density of 327 inhabitants per km².

It is along the Albert Canal and the European route E313, the highway between Antwerp and Liège, one of the reasons it was the place for the first Belgian "Industrial Zone of National Importance" in the 1960s.

Tessenderlo was the scene of an infamous industrial disaster during World War II, when a stock of 150 tonnes of ammonium nitrate at the chemical plant of Produits Chimiques de Tessenderloo (now Tessenderlo Chemie) - located near the centre of town - exploded on April 29, 1942, killing 189 people at the plant and in the town.

Tessenderlo is part of a small western zone of Limburg where the local dialect is not the Limburgian dialect, but Brabantic.