Herstal

Herstal is a city and municipality in the province of Liège, in the Walloon Region of Belgium, lying along the Meuse river and counted as part of the Greater Liège agglomeration of about 600,000 inhabitants. The municipality consists of the districts of Herstal, Liers, Milmort and Vottem. Its name is of Franconian origin, built from the elements for army and for resting place or camp, and it first appears in Latin documents from about 718. Pippin of Herstal, the Carolingian forebear who ruled Austrasia and Neustria as Mayor of the Palace, chose it as a main residence, and Charlemagne is supposed to have been born here and lived in the town for at least fifteen years before he made Aachen his capital. Herstal joined the Prince-Bishopric of Liège only in 1740, was known for ceramists, blacksmiths and clockmakers, and grew in the nineteenth century into a coal and steel town. It became world famous through the Fabrique Nationale armaments factory, founded in 1889, and the Haut-Sart industrial zone is the largest in Wallonia.