Ostend  is a 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...

 city

City

A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...

 and municipality located in the Flemish

Flemish Region

The Flemish Region is one of the three official regions of the Kingdom of Belgium—alongside the Walloon Region and the Brussels-Capital Region. Colloquially, it is usually simply referred to as Flanders, of which it is the institutional iteration within the context of the Belgian political system...

 province

Provinces of Belgium

Belgium is divided into three regions, two of them are subdivided into five provinces each.The division into provinces is fixed by Article 5 of the Belgian Constitution...

 of West Flanders. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerke (West Flanders)

Mariakerke (West Flanders)

Mariakerke is a seaside resort in the West Flanders province of Belgium. Previously a village of its own just to the west of Ostend, it now forms part of that town. It has 11,305 inhabitants.-History:...

, Stene and Zandvoorde, and the city of Ostend proper – the largest on the Belgian coast.
In earlier times, Ostend was nothing more than a small village built on the east-end of an island (originally called Testerep

Testerep

Testerep was an island along the Belgian coast. Fishing villages were scattered about, among them were Oostende and Westende. Oostende being the far east , Westende the far west , and Middelkerke the middle of the island...

) between the North Sea and a beach lake.