Assenede is a municipality

Municipality

A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

 located in the Belgian

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 province of East Flanders

East Flanders

East Flanders is a province of Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. It borders on the Netherlands and in Belgium on the provinces of Antwerp, Flemish Brabant , of Hainaut and of West Flanders...

. The municipality comprises the towns of Assenede proper, Bassevelde, Boekhoute and Oosteeklo. On January 1, 2006 Assenede had a total population of 13,552. The total area is 87.22 km² which gives a population density

Population density

Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...

 of 155 inhabitants per km².

History

Assenede is one of the oldest villages in Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

, the earliest mention of Assenede date back to as early as the 10th century.

Local historic research is done by the "Twee Ambachten". Ethnologically there is no consensus about the name Assenede. According to some sources the name comes from "essen aan de Ede". The "es" means "ash" and "Ede" was a medium size stream.