West Zeeland Flanders

The Landscape

Along the Western Scheldt and the North Sea, West Zeeland Flanders unfolds with its beautiful coastline, a beloved haven for tourists and nature lovers alike. The narrow ribbon of beaches, dunes, dikes, and salt marshes forms the most familiar part of the Land of Cadzand, as this region is also known. But just beyond the coast lies a sweeping green landscape, a mosaic of dikes, polders, and ancient creeks, where time seems to slow and the silence of nature takes the lead.

A vast and open landscape, where long rows of trees sway gracefully in the wind, and the rugged remnants of the Staats-Spanish Lines still mark the once fiercely contested ground. These sixteenth- and seventeenth-century military defences, built during the Eighty Years’ War and lasting into the French era, bear the silent scars of a turbulent past. Though the forts and strongholds have long since vanished, their earthen ramparts and moats have slowly been reclaimed by nature. Where once the echoes of war rang out, life now thrives, plants and animals finding sanctuary in the quiet of these living monuments.