| French: Canal du Centre|italic=no | |||||||||||
| Date Began: | 1888 | ||||||||||
| End Point: | French: [[Grand Large]], [[Mons, Belgium|Mons]]|italic=no | ||||||||||
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The French: Canal du Centre|italic=no (in French pronounced as /kanal dy sɑ̃tʁ/) is a canal in Wallonia, Belgium, which, with other canals, links the waterways of the French: [[Meuse]]|italic=no and Dutch; Flemish: [[Scheldt]]|italic=no rivers. It has a total length of 20.9km (13miles). It connects the artificial lake French: [[Grand Large]]|italic=no near French: [[Nimy]]|italic=no, with the Brussels–Charleroi Canal near French: [[Seneffe]]|italic=no.
The canal begins in the west at French: [[Mons, Belgium|Mons]]|italic=no, and passes through the towns of French: [[Nimy]]|italic=no, French: Obourg|italic=no, French: [[Ville-sur-Haine]]|italic=no, and French: [[Thieu]]|italic=no. This section is 15km (09miles) long, and has a relief of 23.26m (76.31feet). The canal climbs by means of six locks. There are five locks with a relief of 4.2m (13.8feet), and a final lock with a relief of 2.26m (07.41feet) at French: [[Thieu]]|italic=no.[1]
The next section of the original canal route between French: Thieu|italic=no and French: [[Houdeng-Gœgnies]]|italic=no climbs 66m (217feet) over a distance of 6790m (22,280feet), which is too steep a climb for canal locks. Therefore, this section contains four hydraulic boat lifts, dating from 1888 to 1917, which are now on the UNESCO World Heritage list (see Boat Lifts on the French: Canal du Centre|nocat=yes|italic=no). These lifts were designed by Edwin Clark of the British company Clark, Stansfield & Clark. For commercial traffic this stretch of the canal has, since 2002, been replaced by an enlarged parallel canal.
For centuries, Belgian people had wanted an inland waterway to connect the French: Meuse|italic=no and the Dutch; Flemish: [[Scheldt]]|italic=no. However, the height difference of about between the two rivers would require as many as 32 locks, which was not feasible. In 1879, the Ministry of Public Works adopted a proposal by Edwin Clark which used boat lifts instead of locks. The first lift (French: Houdeng-Gœgnies|italic=no) was built between 1885 and 1888. It was inaugurated on June 4, 1888 by King Leopold II.[2] The three other boat lifts were finally finished in 1917 and put into service in 1919. There were several reasons for this delay. From 1894 to 1911, the economic need for the canal was repeatedly called into question. Then in 1914, when the three lifts were practically finished, World War I began.[2]
The old canal could accommodate boats with a displacement of up to 350 tons. In 1957 the Belgian parliament passed a law providing for a major expansion of the canal, increasing the maximum displacement of a boat that could use the canal to .[2] In the event, it was decided to alter the course of the canal rather than to enlarge it along the full extent of its existing length. A defining feature of the enlarged canal was the Strépy-Thieu boat lift which replaced the four smaller boat lifts and one or two locks which had been part of the former canal.
The French: Canal du Centre|italic=no was opened to boats with a displacement of 1,350 tonnes in September 2002. Between 2000 and 2004 the annual ship transits increased from 1,531 to 4,041 while the tonnage carried increased from 282,000 to 1,513,000.
The lifts on the old parallel canal remain in position, having in 1998 been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.