Hoogstraten

Hoogstraten is a municipality and city in the Belgian province of Antwerp, in Flanders, at the northern border of Belgium within an enclave surrounded on three sides by the Netherlands. The municipality comprises Hoogstraten, Meer, Meerle, Meersel-Dreef, Minderhout and Wortel, and Meersel-Dreef includes the northernmost point in Belgium. The name comes from the hoge straat, or high road, a military highway that linked Antwerp and 's-Hertogenbosch. The town was chartered as a free town in 1210, the Land van Hoogstraten later became a county, and in 1740 Hoogstraten was raised to a duchy. Between 1602 and 1604 the Mutiny of Hoogstraten, the longest mutiny of the Spanish Army of Flanders during the Eighty Years' War, took place there. Today the town is internationally known for its strawberries, with more than 30,000 tonnes traded at its auction every year, though its main agricultural crop is the tomato.