Belgium · Flanders · Gent
Zuid, Gent — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Old rail ground carries the lawns of the Koning Albertpark at Zuid, a district of Gent laid out around the Woodrow Wilsonplein.
About Zuid
Where to stay in Zuid
Not every neighbourhood fits every trip — here's what each one is good for.
Zuid gathers a tram and bus interchange, the Urbiscomplex, and the Stadskantoor Gent around one square, and it keeps very few beds. A car park runs under the whole of the Woodrow Wilsonplein. The square began as the Stationstraat.
Beds sit thicker a short walk north-west, along the Vlaanderenstraat and around the Kouter in the old core of Gent. Take a room there if you want tram and bus lines at the door, because the routes that cross Gent meet at the Woodrow Wilsonplein and the Koning Albertpark opens straight off it.
About Zuid
What are the main landmarks in Zuid?
Zuid keeps its set pieces on two squares, the Woodrow Wilsonplein and the Graaf van Vlaanderenplein just east. The east wall of the Graaf van Vlaanderenplein is a neoclassical terrace built between 1847 and 1852 by Charles Leclerc-Restiaux, three porticoes with triangular pediments facing the station across the square. Facades and roofs were listed in 1988.
Geo Henderick fitted the Capitole out as a cinema behind one of them in 1932. The Urbiscomplex fills the block north to the Kuiperskaai, and the Koning Albertpark runs south from the Stadskantoor Gent. Sint-Annakerk stands outside Zuid, east down the Zuidstationstraat.
What is the history of Zuid?
Zuid was pasture before it was a quarter. The Muinkmeersen lay inside the city wall from the 13th century and still belonged to the monks of the Sint-Pietersabdij, open meadow with the Oude Schelde winding through it. The first railway into the city crossed that ground, and station Gent-Zuid opened on 28 September 1837; the larger terminus that Auguste Payen designed followed in 1850.
Streets came with the tracks. The Zuidstationstraat was cut and built up between 1838 and 1841, and in 1883 the Zollikofer-De Vigneplan drove the Vlaanderenstraat through to the old core. The station closed in 1928 and was pulled down in 1930.
Where is Zuid?
Zuid lies east of the Muinkschelde in Gent, running south from the Vlaanderenstraat to the Koning Albertpark and the end of the B401.
Good for
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Updated September 2026