Belgium · Flanders · Antwerp
Zuid, Antwerp — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Zuid is Antwerp's southern city-centre quarter, an Art Nouveau and Modern district beside the Scheldt with galleries, cafés and three museums.
About Zuid
Where to stay in Zuid
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Hotel rooms in Zuid sit among galleries rather than tour queues, a short walk south of the old core. The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp anchors one end of the quarter, and the streets around M HKA and FOMU carry most of the cafés, restaurants and design shops that make the neighbourhood worth a night. Quieter beds face the Scheldt.
If you want galleries and dinner on the same block, with the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal an easy walk north, this is the side of Antwerp to book.
About Zuid
What are the main landmarks in Zuid?
Three museums do the heavy lifting. The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp keeps the old-master collection, while M HKA and FOMU handle contemporary art and photography a few streets away, and commercial galleries fill the blocks between them. Two art centres add to the programme.
Antwerp's older monuments stand north of here: the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal, Rubenshuis and Museum Plantin-Moretus in the historic core, with Het Steen on the quay and Museum aan de Stroom beyond it.
What is the history of Zuid?
Zuid came back in the mid-1980s. Galleries, cafés and restaurants moved into a southern strip of Antwerp's centre that had lost its pull, and the museums and art centres followed. The street wall carries both halves of that story.
Art Nouveau frontages stand beside Modern blocks, so the quarter reads differently from the older lanes around the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal.
Where is Zuid?
Zuid fills the southern end of Antwerp's city centre, its western side closed off by the Scheldt. The old core begins just north.
Good for
More areas in Antwerp
Updated September 2026