Woensel is a former town in theDutch province ofNorth Brabant, but nowadays a borough ofEindhoven.
An important rural village inNorth Brabant, Woensel is mentioned in a document from 1107; it was the seat of adeanage of thediocese of Liège. According to the German mythologistJacob Grimm[1] the name Woensel is a reference to the Germanic godWodan (Odin in Norse mythology). The suffix would have been an abbreviation of either-sala ("hall") or-loo ("forest").
Around 1200,Eindhoven, a fortification on theDommel river to the south of Woensel, grew into a local market town that took more political prominence, but never surpassed Woensel in prosperity or population.
Woensel was a separate municipality until the fusion, in 1920, of Eindhoven proper (i.e. within the town walls) and its surrounding villages into a single municipality.[2] Today, Woensel is Eindhoven's largestdistrict, with about 110,000 inhabitants; it is mostly covered by urban neighbourhoods erected between 1950 and 1990.
Woensel offers very few places of more than local interest, being almost entirely a residential area; Eindhoven's mainentertainmentvenues and industry are in other parts of town. Until 1998, the international head office ofPhilips was located in Woensel. Currently, this building is the seat of the Dutch organisation of Philips.
Known to at least Eindhoven's inhabitants are
There is also a World War II cemetery of theCommonwealth of Nations.
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51°29′N5°28′E / 51.483°N 5.467°E /51.483; 5.467
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