Belgium · Flanders · Antwerp
Oud-Berchem, Antwerp — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Oud-Berchem is the old core of Antwerp's Berchem district, a shopping quarter built along the Grotesteenweg and the Statiestraat.
About Oud-Berchem
Where to stay in Oud-Berchem
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Trams 7 and 15 run the Grotesteenweg through the quarter, stopping at De Merode, Driekoningen and Sint-Willibrordus, so a bed along that road keeps central Antwerp within one ride. Shops sit on Statiestraat and Driekoningenstraat. Antwerpen-Berchem station marks the eastern edge, beside the Posthofbrug, and the Berchem part of Zurenborg starts just beyond it.
You trade the tourist streets of the old city for a quarter that does its own shopping, with the Basiliek van het Heilig Hart on the western side.
About Oud-Berchem
What are the main landmarks in Oud-Berchem?
The churches do the work here. The Basiliek van het Heilig Hart stands on the western side, the Sint-Willibrorduskerk is the old parish church that Berchem calls the oude kerk, and the Sint-Hubertuskerk makes the third. Museums sit elsewhere.
The Vlaams Tram- en Autobusmuseum keeps its trams and buses on Diksmuidelaan over in Groenenhoek, while the Rubenshuis, Museum Plantin-Moretus and the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp all belong to the old city. Wolvenberg and the Brilschans lie south across the Ring.
What is the history of Oud-Berchem?
Boomgaardstraat remembers a lost stream. The Boomgaardbeek divided Berchem from the Antwerp quarter of Haringrode as far back as the eighth century, in the years of Willibrord and Pepijn van Herstal, and the street now traces what the water once marked. The Berthout family held a castle near Uitbreidingstraat, where the Berchemsepoort and the Willibrordusput also stood.
Koning Albertpark was a gallows field. Generaal Lemanstraat has fixed the western edge of the quarter since 1912, when the boundary moved off Karel Oomstraat.
Where is Oud-Berchem?
Oud-Berchem runs west to Generaal Lemanstraat, south to the Antwerp Ring, and east to Antwerpen-Berchem station, with Haringrode beyond Boomgaardstraat.
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Updated September 2026