Zele 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 only comprises the town of Zele proper. On January 1, 2006 Zele had a total population of 20,371. The total area is 33.06 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 616 inhabitants per km².

Famous inhabitants

• Pierre de Decker
  Pierre de Decker
  Pierre Jacques François de Decker was a Belgian Roman Catholic politician, statesman and author....
  
  , former Prime Minister of Belgium (1855–1857)
• Caroline Maes
  Caroline Maes
  Caroline Maes is a Belgian tennis player.Maes is active in the singles game since 1997 and doubles since 1999. The highest place she ever achieved on the WTA-ranking in singles is 151st on 28 May 2007. In doubles she got to the 143rd place on 9 July 2007...
  
  , professional tennis player
• Christophe Impens, Belgian recordholder 1500 m run, semi-finalist at Atlanta olympics.
• Filip De Wilde
  Filip De Wilde
  Filip Alfons de Wilde is a retired Belgian football goalkeeper, who played mainly with R.S.C. Anderlecht.-Club career:...
  
  , professional football player.

Other meanings

Zelé (зеле) means 'cabbage

Cabbage

Cabbage is a popular cultivar of the species Brassica oleracea Linne of the Family Brassicaceae and is a leafy green vegetable...

' in Bulgarian

Bulgarian language

Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...

.
Zele was a city in Pontus

Pontus

Pontus or Pontos is a historical Greek designation for a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day northeastern Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region in antiquity by the Greeks who colonized the area, and derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea: Πόντος...

 where a synod

Synod

A synod historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not...

 was held.

Želė means 'jelly' in Lithuanian

Lithuanian language

Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...

.