Pont-à-Celles
Encyclopedia
Pont-à-Celles is a Walloon municipality
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

 located in the Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 province of Hainaut. On January 1, 2006, Pont-à-Celles had a total population of 16,292. The total area is 55.73 km² which gives a population density
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...

 of 292 inhabitants per km².

Villages

The following villages are part of the municipality of Pont-à-Celles :
Buzet, Liberchies
Liberchies
Liberchies is a village in the municipality of Pont-à-Celles, in the Belgian province of Hainaut.It is situated along the previous Roman highway Bavay-Tongeren where a vicus was discovered. Geminiacum is the name of the vicus that developed along the Roman highway next to the center of today's...

, Luttre
Luttre
Luttre is a small village in Wallonia, Belgium, about 50 km south of Brussels along the Charleroi-Brussels Canal, railway line and motorway. Its name means crystal clear water...

, Obaix, Pont-à-Celles (village that gave its name to the municipality), Thimeon, Viesville.

Origin of the name

Pont-à-Celles draws its name from Latin Cella, meaning room or cell of monk, probably because of the presence of the monastery founded in VIIe century, by Saint Amand (apostle of Belgium). The jurisdiction on which this primitive monastery was established, and then the priory of the Park, was called Celles, and later Pont-à-Celles.
The name of Pont-à-Celles appears for the first time during the 16th century, when the monks of the Park built a bridge on the Pieton river near to the church. The parishioners of Luttre and Hairiamont then had to cross the bridge for going to service (bridge to Celles, Pont-à-Celles). Gradually, this name extended to all the parish whose territory covered six seigniories. When in 1795, the French replaced these six seigniories by a newly created municipality, they adopted the name of the parish (Pont-à-Celles). In 1815, after the defeat of Napoleon in Waterloo, our territories were annexed to The Netherlands. With this occasion, the department of Jemappes (to which belonged Pont-à-Celles) became the province of Hainaut.

Django Reinhardt

The famous Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 guitarist Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...

 was born in Liberchies
Liberchies
Liberchies is a village in the municipality of Pont-à-Celles, in the Belgian province of Hainaut.It is situated along the previous Roman highway Bavay-Tongeren where a vicus was discovered. Geminiacum is the name of the vicus that developed along the Roman highway next to the center of today's...

. Every May, the community honors him with the open air Django Reinhardt Jazz Festival
Django Reinhardt Jazz Festival
The Festival de Jazz Django Reinhardt is held in Samois-sur-Seine, France since 1968. It has become a yearly event since 1984, and it takes place in the last full weekend in June. The Samois festival is seen amongst the Gypsy Jazz community as being the definitive Django festival with people...

.
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