Friday, October 8, 2010

Ypres on the map

Frequently, a map is shown in the underprint design or as part of a vignette of a share certificate. My home town Ypres, Ieper in Dutch, is now a relative small municipality. So, it was a big surprise to find it on a map of this certificate of the French Compagnie de Navigation Fluviale Du Nord , founded at Dunkerque, 1892.



However, in the early Middle Ages, Ypres was a renowned center for its international trade of linen. During the following centuries it became occupied multiple times by the English, the French, the Spanish, the Austrians and the Dutch. A real disaster for its economy.


Copper engraving Nouvelle Carte du Comte de Flandre
by Paul de la Feuille
from the Kleyne en Beknopte Atlas, 1735
(Ypres bears the name Yperen)
More about Ypres, click : here

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