Belgium · Flanders · Gent
Rabot, Gent — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Rabot takes its name from the towered sluice on the Lieve, north of Gent's centre in the belt the textile mills built.
About Rabot
Where to stay in Rabot
Each area has its own feel; here's who each one suits.
Rabot sits close in behind the Gravensteen, and Rabotstraat runs the whole way from Burgstraat to the sluice itself. Hotel counters are inside the centre rather than out here, so the usual arrangement is a room in the Binnenstad and a walk out along Begijnhoflaan or Wondelgemstraat to the Griendeplein. The Torekens are the marker.
Gebroeders de Smetstraat carries the campus end of the district.
About Rabot
What are the main landmarks in Rabot?
The Rabot itself is a sluice with towers on it, standing where the Lieve leaves the city. Gent's citizens raised the towers in 1488, after the troops of the Emperor Frederick III gave up a siege that had lasted forty days, and the local name for the building has been the Torekens ever since. Sint-Jozefskerk stands on Wondelgemstraat and the Rabotkerk on Begijnhoflaan.
Both are parish churches.
What is the history of Rabot?
The mills made this district and then left it. Textile works filled the streets during the nineteenth-century boom, and NV Loutex ran at the corner of Rabot and Gebroeders de Smetstraat until the site passed to the Technologiecampus Gent of KU Leuven. Three housing towers went up between 1972 and 1974 with 573 flats between them.
All three came down again, the first between 2013 and 2015, the last between 2020 and 2021.
Where is Rabot?
The district lies north of Gent's centre along the Lieve, joined with the streets on the Blaisantvest in the city's own map.
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More areas in Gent
Updated September 2026