Turnhout is a Belgian municipality located in the Flemish province of Antwerp. The municipality comprises only the city of Turnhout proper. Turnhout is also the capital of the administrative district with the same name. The Turnhout city council often promotes the city as “the capital of the Kempen area”. This designation is entirely unofficial, since the Kempen area is far larger than the Turnhout district and does not form an administrative unit.
Turnhout serves as the economic and cultural center for other communities in the immediate vicinity with more than 40 schools. There is also an important services sector with two hospitals, a two-stage theatre, an eight-screen cinema and one of the largest cultural centres of Belgium.
Turnhout is known for its playing card industry, as it houses the head office of the world’s largest manufacturer of playing cards, Cartamundi.
Sights
- The medieval castle of the Dukes of Brabant , now a court of justice
- The Turnhout station
- Turnhout ‘s neoclassical town hall
- The St. Peter’s Church from the 15th and 18th century with a 19th century pulpit, the choir stalls (1713) and confessionals from 1740
- The Begijnhof (included on the UNESCO World Heritage List )
- The Theobaldus Chapel
- The Sacred Heart Church
Museums
- National Playing Card Museum
- Taxandriamuseum (local history museum)
- Beguinage Museum
- Natuurpunt Museum
Culture
Turnhout ensembles
- Harmony ‘Entertainment After Work’
- Xaverians
- De Volkswil
Events
- In the summer there are the Augustusfooren in Turnhout and on a few Sundays the event ‘Turnhout terrace’.
- During the summer months, various events of various genres, such as dance, sports, children’s entertainment and music, also take place on the Grote Markt under the name ” Turnhout Zomert “.
MOOOV
The annual film festival MOOOV, formerly Open Doek, presents a wide range of films, documentaries and animation from ‘world cinema’. The film festival has grown from the belief that quality, artistic products usually require an ‘event’ to reach wide attention and a wide audience. The assignment is clear: share the fragile world film with a wide audience, present a representative sample of the rich offer of current world cinema, invite the audience to look beyond their own borders and ensure a warm-blooded festival atmosphere. Every spring, 70 films from all over the world are shown in various sections in the Warande and Utopolis during a ten-day party for film lovers.
Comic Guide Festival
Stripgids Festival (previously known as Strip Turnhout and Stripgidsdag (s) ) is a biennial comic festival that has been organized in Turnhout since 1979. This makes it the oldest comic festival in the Benelux. The festival also presents the biennial Bronze Adhemar prize, which has existed since 1977. Since 2003, this prize has been a state prize .
Economy
In the late Middle Ages , Turnhout was a well-known center for the weaving of bed linen and the linen trade . At the beginning of the 19th century , these industries were supplanted by those based on paper. Philippus Jacobus Brepols is considered the founder of that industry. Much of that industry continues to this day with various graphics and logistics companies including Cartamundi , the world leader in playing cards . Other well-known companies with headquarters in Turnhout are Soudal and Miko. In 2011-2012, the industrial zone was expanded, where the last companies are currently being built.
Medical
Turnhout has 1,857 registered organ donors on 25 September 2011 , or 4.45% of the population. This is currently the highest percentage of organ donors of all municipalities in Belgium and the result of an annual registration campaign called Beldonor since 2007. In this 5th year of action, the City would like to have 5% organ donors by the end of October 2011. Turnhout also has a hospital: AZ Turnhout .
