Belgium · Flanders · Antwerp
Wilrijk, Antwerp — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Wilrijk is a district of Antwerp, a former municipality south of the city centre with its own parish churches and the Middelheim Museum.
About Wilrijk
Where to stay in Wilrijk
Each area has its own feel; here's who each one suits.
Wilrijk keeps few beds of its own. Most visitors book in Antwerp and come out to the parish quarters around Sint-Bernarduskerk and the Heilig Hartkerk, treating the district as a quiet base with the city a short ride north. The Middelheim Museum side suits anyone who wants open-air sculpture and lawns within walking distance.
Everything else here is residential.
About Wilrijk
What are the main landmarks in Wilrijk?
Sculpture first. The Middelheim Museum shows modern work in the open air, its pieces standing among lawns and mature trees rather than inside galleries. Churches carry the rest of the map: Kristus-Koningkerk, Onze-Lieve-Vrouw van de Rozenkranskerk, Sint-Jan Evangelistkerk, and the Heilig Hartkerk each mark a parish of their own.
Neerlandhof closes the list. Two entries share the name Sint-Jan Maria Vianney: the Sint-Jan Maria Vianneykerk and the Oude parochiekerk Sint-Jan Maria Vianney, the parish church and the older one that carries the same dedication.
What is the history of Wilrijk?
Wilrijk governed itself first. The commune stayed separate until the first day of 1983, when it was folded into the enlarged municipality of Antwerp together with the other communes ringing the city. Decentralization followed in 2000.
Wilrijk came back as one of the nine districts, keeping a name and a parish map older than the merger that took it in.
Where is Wilrijk?
Wilrijk spreads over flat ground south of Antwerp's centre, inside the Belgian province of Antwerp, where the built-up city gives way to open ground.
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More areas in Antwerp
Updated September 2026