Ninove

Ninove is a city and municipality in the province of East Flanders in Flanders, Belgium, on the river Dender in the region known as the Denderstreek. The municipality covers about 72.6 square kilometres and consists of the city proper together with the towns merged into it in 1976, among them Meerbeke, Lieferinge, Okegem and Outer. The earliest form of the name, Neonifus, dates from the 9th century, and the name is understood to mean new pasture. Norbertine monks from Park Abbey founded the Abbey of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian next to the town in 1137, and the town received a city charter from Henry of Flanders in 1339. In the 19th century Ninove industrialised and became the centre of the Flemish match industry, whose last factory closed in the late 1970s. The finish of the Tour of Flanders cycling race was at Meerbeke in Ninove from 1973 to 2011.