Ypres

Ypres, municipality, West Flanders province (province), western Belgium. It lies along the Yperlee (Ieperlee) River, south of Ostend. Ypres became a major cloth-weaving city in the Middle Ages, and together with Brugge and Ghent it virtually controlled Flanders in the 13th century. At that time it was reputed to have a population of 80,000. An unsuccessful but devastating siege of the city by the English in 1383 during the Hundred Years’ War helped cause Ypres’s...