Ypres

Town in the province of West Flanders, Belgium, on the River Yperlee, 47 km/29 mi southwest of Bruges; population (1991) 35,200. In the Middle Ages the town was a centre of the Flanders cloth trade, especially woollens, but the chief manufactures are now linen and biscuits. The Menin Gate 1927 is a memorial to the British and Commonwealth troops who lost their lives here in World War I (see Ypres, Battles of).

Ypres was the Allied communications centre in the World War I, and was situated at a bulge in their front line, which became known as the Ypres Salient; several futile attempts to breach the German defences were launched from here. Constant shelling reduced most of the town's fine medieval buildings to rubble, such as the Cloth Hall 1201-1342, the 13th-century St Martin's Church, the Gothic meat market, the Renaissance town hall, and the Templars' houses. Many of these were reconstructed after the war.