Diksmuide

Diksmuide, called Dixmude in French, is a Belgian city and municipality in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality is made up of the city proper and fourteen former communes, among them Beerst, Esen, Pervijze, Vladslo and Woumen. Most of the land west of the city is polder crossed by drainage trenches, and dairy farming is the main economic activity, which gave the town its well known butter. The name joins the Dutch words for dike and river mouth, and the Frankish settlement of Dicasmutha stood at the mouth of a stream near the River Yser in the 9th century. A chapel and market existed by the 10th century, a charter followed two centuries later and defensive walls were built in 1270. In October 1914 the Battle of the Yser began here and the town was reduced to rubble by the end of the First World War, then rebuilt in the 1920s. The belfry with its 30 bell carillon is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the Trench of Death, the Yser Tower and the Vladslo German war cemetery draw visitors. The municipality had an estimated 17,386 inhabitants on 1 January 2026.