Ypres

Town in the province of West Flanders, Belgium, on the River Yperlee, 47 km/29 mi southwest of Bruges; population (2006 est) 36,100. 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.