Around Doel 16.4 km

Walk in and around Doel via junctions (25-90-89-88-87-85-70-21-22-23-92-92-93-24-26-25) distance 17km Start: Scheldemolenstraat

Visit ghost town of Doel: the abandoned village near Antwerp - Belgium

Looking for an alternative spot for a fun trip? How about Doel, in the north of the province of East Flanders (Belgium), just near the Dutch border. This almost deserted village on the left bank of the Scheldt.

We also drove to the port of Antwerp on a sunny Sunday afternoon in July to visit Doel. You can't just drive into the village (not on weekends anyway, read more). You have to put your identity card in a vending machine on the access road to the village, after which a pole sinks into the ground and you can drive to the village by car.

Doel, once a peaceful village in the Scheldepolders, since a few years mainly known for empty houses and streets full of graffiti and street art. Except for a dozen residents, the village is completely deserted and gradually becomes a ghost town.

At the beginning of the 1970s Doel still had 1400 inhabitants, which was almost decimated in number over the years. In 2000 there were still 810 people living there, in 2015 this had fallen further to 140 and in 2019 another ten.

1960: the first expansion plans of the port of Antwerp

We write in 1960 when the first expansion plans for the port of Antwerp were put on the table and thus also endangered the survival of the village of Doel. In the late 1970s, along with the oil crisis and the economic downturn, these plans were shelved.
In the mid-1990s, new plans were put on the table to build a new container dock (Deurganckdok) south of Doel, which would jeopardize the quality of life of Doel.

Ambiguity, uncertainty and political wrangling

Political wrangling and ambiguity created a lot of uncertainty among residents and sowed division within the local community. In 1998, the Flemish government decided that the village of Doel had to disappear. Meanwhile 20 years later and many protests, blunders and action committees (Doel2020 later the village still exists and there are still people who live there. There is now even a buyback right for residents who once sold their homes to the government for expropriation.

Have fun walking in the GHOST TOWN Emiel Peeters