Lommel

Lommel is a municipality and city in the Belgian province of Limburg, in the Kempen region, with about 34,000 inhabitants. It belongs to the arrondissement of Maaseik. The name comes from Loemelo, built from words for moist or swampy ground and for forest or woodland. Silver sand of high quality has been mined here for the glass industry, and some of the sand quarries have become nature reserves and recreation areas, among them the Lommel Sahara, alongside the De Watering reserve and extensive forests and heathlands. Lommel is the third shopping city of Belgian Limburg and holds the German war cemetery on the road to Leopoldsburg, the largest German military cemetery in Western Europe outside Germany. Its sand track hosts the Belgian round of the Motocross World Championship, and the European Open snooker tournament has been played in the city since 2017. The local dialect belongs to East Brabantian rather than the Limburgish dialects.