![[Flag of Merksplas]](../images/b/be-vanmk.gif)
Last modified: 2011-11-12 by ivan sache
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Municipal flag of Merksplas - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 14 February 2007
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The municipality of Merksplas (8,270 inhabitants on 1 January 2007;
4,455 ha) is located in Northern Kempen, 40 km of Antwerp.
The inhabitants of Merksplas are nicknamed spetsers and the town the
spetserdorp (the spetsers' village). The village is located in an
area watered by the Scheldt and the Maas, and was in the past rich in
ponds (in Dutch, plassen), peat bogs, duck ponds and fish ponds. The
travelers heading to Merksplas had to go wading through wet places,
therefore the name of spetsers, splashers (this a dialectal form, the
usual Dutch word for "to splash" is bespatten), given to the
inhabitants of Merksplas. They seem to enjoy it since there is a
fountain on the market square of Merksplas called De Spetser,
designed by Krys Druyts.
The village was named after the river Mark, which takes its sources and
forms the northern border (march) of the Margravate of Antwerp. The
oldest mention of Merskplas is shown, as Marcblas, in a document dated
1148 confirming the transfer of the village church to the Norbertine
fathers, who ran it for six centuries. The domain of Merksplas belonged
later either to the Country of Turnhout or to the Country of Hoogstraten. In the Middle Ages, it was a popular place of pilgrimage where St. Roch was invoked against the black plague.
Merksplas is mostly known for its prison, one of the four prisons
located in Northern Kempen, the three others being in Turnhout, Wortel
and Hoogstraten. The Turnhout and Hoogstraten prisons are local prisons whereasthose of Merksplas and Wortel were specially set up to house tramps.
The Merksplas prison, one of the biggest in Belgium, was opened in 1822
as a house for beggars, and evolved to a State charity house for
tramps, eventually to a big prison. Some 700 can be interned there
whereas the former tramps' dormitories are used today to house up to 150
illegal immigrants. The prison is surrounded by a big domain,
officially protected by law since 1999, which makes of Merksplas a
place unique in Europe. The 600-ha domain, surrounded by a circulary
canal, was designed according to a grid pattern including open fields,
pastures, pine and beech woods, moors and remains of peat bogs as well
as a few clay pits, used today as storing places or fish ponds. The
five main buildings of the domain are the prison, the center for
illegal immigrants, the Great Farm, the former school and the prison's
chapel, today used as the visitor's center with the Museum of the Loss
of Liberty.
Sources: Municipal website
Ivan Sache & Jan Mertens, 14 February 2007
The municipal flag is horizontally divided green-white-green (1:2:1)
with the former municipal arms, a black shield with a white lion, in
the middle of the white stripe.
According to Gemeentewapens in België - Vlaanderen en Brussel [w2v02a], the flag was adopted by the Municipal
Council on 22 July 1987, confirmed by the Executive of Flanders on 13
October 1987 and published in the Belgian official gazette on 16
September 1988.
Green and white are the traditional colours of Merksplas, which had in
the past an unofficial green-white flag. The
design of the flag might have been derived from the flag of Antwerp,
green symbolizing the environment of Merksplas.
The new arms of Merksplas, as shown in Van evers en heiligen: Wapens en vlaggen van gemeenten in de provincie Antwerpen [pbd98], are made of a white shield with a black lozenge charged with the lion, but having red claws and tongue. The coat of arms was adopted on 20 July 1993.
Arnaud Leroy, Pascal Vagnat, Jan Mertens & Ivan Sache, 4 November 2006
