Tielt

Tielt is a Belgian city and municipality in the province of West Flanders, made up of the town of Tielt itself and the villages of Aarsele, Kanegem and Schuiferskapelle. The first written mention, as Tiletum, dates from 1105, and in 1245 Margaret of Constantinople, Countess of Flanders, gave it a city charter and ordered a hospital founded; a market place and cloth hall followed. An annual fair granted by Philip the Bold in 1393 made it a centre of the flax industry until the end of the sixteenth century, after which fires, epidemics and famine set it back, and from about 1700 it prospered again as a regional centre for the building trades. German forces made it a headquarters in the First World War, and the bombing of the Second World War destroyed much of the centre. Its Belfry, Cloth Hall and Aldermen's Chamber are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and today it is a provincial town offering commercial, medical and educational services, with textile, chemical and publishing firms among its employers.