Land-use policy in the port of Antwerp (1870-1994)

Abstract

Today, ports are more than merely places where ships are loaded and unloaded. Increasingly, customers expect a full package of services. Industry and integrated logistics with supply chain management offer added value. Moreover every possible kind of cargo must be shipped to and from virtually any port in the world as competently and as quickly as possible. Antwerp has always been an important link in international trade. As an inland port, it has the highest centrality index within the Hamburg Le Havre range, i.e. the best possible location vis-à-vis the shared hinterland and the largest European production and consumption centres. Today, a dense network of motorways, railways, waterways and pipelines connects the port to its hinterland. Initially, rail transport constituted the most important mode of inland transportation, as rail links, particularly with the east, were constructed from the 1840s onwards. Later, attention focused on the development of inland navigation and, in between the two World Wars, on road transport too. This is one of the many shifts that characterize the evolution of the port in the twentieth century.