The () is a

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...

Wallonia Wallonia (; french: Wallonie ), or ; nl, Wallonië ; wa, Waloneye or officially the Walloon Region (french: link=no, Région wallonne),; nl, link=no, Waals gewest; wa, link=no, Redjon walone is one of the three regions of Belgium—alo ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, which, with other canals, links the waterways of the and rivers. It has a total length of . It connects the artificial lake near , with the

Brussels–Charleroi Canal The Brussels–Charleroi Canal, also known as the Charleroi Canal amongst other similar names, (french: canal Bruxelles-Charleroi, nl, kanaal Brussel-Charleroi) is an important canal in Belgium. The canal is quite large, with a Class IV Freyc ...

near .

Route

The canal begins in the west at , and passes through the towns of , , , and . This section is long, and has a relief of . The canal climbs by means of six locks. There are five locks with a relief of , and a final lock with a relief of at . The next section of the original canal route between and climbs over a distance of , which is too steep a climb for canal locks. Therefore, this section contains four hydraulic

boat lift A boat lift, ship lift, or lift lock is a machine for transporting boats between water at two different elevations, and is an alternative to the canal lock. It may be vertically moving, like the Anderton boat lift in England, rotational, like ...

s, dating from 1888 to 1917, which are now on the

UNESCO World Heritage A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

list (''see Boat Lifts on the ''). These lifts were designed by Edwin Clark of the British company Clark, Stansfield & Clark. For commercial traffic this stretch of the canal has, since 2002, been replaced by an enlarged parallel canal.

History

Old canal

For centuries, Belgian people had wanted an inland waterway to connect the and the . However, the height difference of about between the two rivers would require as many as 32 locks, which was not feasible. In 1879, the Ministry of Public Works adopted a proposal by Edwin Clark which used

s instead of locks. The first lift () was built between 1885 and 1888. It was inaugurated on June 4, 1888 by

King Leopold II * german: link=no, Leopold Ludwig Philipp Maria Viktor , house = Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , father = Leopold I of Belgium , mother = Louise of Orléans , birth_date = , birth_place = Brussels, Belgium , death_date = ...

. The three other

s were finally finished in 1917 and put into service in 1919. There were several reasons for this delay. From 1894 to 1911, the economic need for the canal was repeatedly called into question. Then in 1914, when the three lifts were practically finished,

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

began.

New canal

The old canal could accommodate boats with a displacement of up to 350 tons. In 1957 the Belgian parliament passed a law providing for a major expansion of the canal, increasing the maximum displacement of a boat that could use the canal to . In the event, it was decided to alter the course of the canal rather than to enlarge it along the full extent of its existing length. A defining feature of the enlarged canal was the

Strépy-Thieu boat lift The Strépy-Thieu boat lift (french: L'ascenseur funiculaire de Strépy-Thieu) lies on a branch of the Canal du Centre in the municipality of Le Rœulx, Hainaut, Belgium. With a height difference of between the upstream and downstream reache ...

which replaced the four smaller boat lifts and one or two locks which had been part of the former canal. The was opened to boats with a displacement of 1,350 tonnes in September 2002. Between 2000 and 2004 the annual ship transits increased from 1,531 to 4,041 while the tonnage carried increased from 282,000 to 1,513,000. The lifts on the old parallel canal remain in position, having in 1998 been designated a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

References

External links

*
Official website
{{Authority control Canals in Wallonia Canals in Hainaut (province) Canals opened in 1919