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Waterloo and Napoleon

Friday, 5 October 2012 - 01:19 pm (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: European Union / Europäische Union
Category/Kategorie: General Reading Time:  4 minutes

🔊 Listen to this Post Waterloo is a Walloon municipality located in the province of Walloon Brabant. On 30 September 2011, Waterloo had a total population of 29,706. The total area is 21.03 km² which gives a population density of 1,413 inhabitants per km². Nearly one fifth of the current registered population (5,640 inhabitants) are non-Belgian, many of whom work for institutions or companies in Brussels, a political centre of the European Union.

The Battle of Waterloo took place near Waterloo on 18 June 1815 between the First French Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Alliance of the Seventh Coalition (the United Kingdom, Prussia, Austria and others), under the main allied commanders, the Duke of Wellington and General von Blücher.

The strategic location of Waterloo on a paved road towards Brussels explains why the battle took place just south of Waterloo. It was important for the allies to stop Napoleon from reaching Brussels, and Waterloo was the last settlement to cross before negotiating the forest and getting to Brussels.

There is a memorial in the form of a statue of a lion (looking towards France) on a hill, with 226 stairs, called La Butte du Lion. Other attractions related to the battle are the Wellington Museum and the Roman Catholic Church of St. Joseph, where Wellington is said to have prayed before going into battle and where British and Dutch plaques commemorating the fallen are now to be seen.

Today, Waterloo is home to the European headquarters of MasterCard International. There is a Carrefour hypermarket in Mont-Saint-Jean, a Delhaize store, an Ibis Hotel, several BNP Paribas Fortis branches, office parks to the east of the town and two international schools: St. John’s International School and the “Scandinavian School”. As a result Waterloo is a polyglot and multicultural town, the Commune offers services in French, Dutch, and English. A row of shops, called Petit Paris is situated on the Chaussée de Bruxelles (which becomes Chaussée de Waterloo or Waterloosesteenweg when leaving Waterloo in the North and nearing Brussels).

Read more on Commune of Waterloo, walloniabelgiumtourism.co.uk – Waterloo and Wikipedia Waterloo. Learn more about the use of photos. To inform you about latest news most of the city, town or tourism websites offer a newsletter service and/or operate Facebook pages/Twitter accounts. In addition more and more destinations, tourist organizations and cultural institutions offer Apps for your Smart Phone or Tablet, to provide you with a mobile tourist guide (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.