Discover the City Known as the Diamond Capital of the World

In the 1400s, a Belgian man named Lodewijk van Berckem mixed diamond dust with olive oil and helped start history. Using those two substances, he contrived a wheel-operated machine that mechanically polished diamonds from every possible angle. Van Berckem invented the device right around the time his city of Antwerp started its ascent to the top of the worldwide diamond industry. Take a look at the Belgian port city of Antwerp, which remains the diamond capital of the world.

Antwerp is the Diamond Capital of the World

Religious toleration in the 1400s helped usher in conditions for the global gem dominance of Antwerp. Eventually, it became famous for the cutting, polishing, importing, exporting, selling, and trading of diamonds.

Over 80% of all unrefined diamonds pass through the exchanges in Antwerp, along with half the cut diamonds. In the heart of the Diamond District in the city, 1,700 registered enterprises are dealing specifically in “ice.”

The Hovenierstraat thoroughfare is the long urban stretch housing countless diamond sellers and related businesses in the diamond capital of the world. The Diamond Square Mile sits just west of the Scheldt River.

In 2018, Antwerp opened its DIVA museum, showcasing the city’s resplendent history of the diamond trade. The institution also features the art and science of diamonds. Novelty exhibits included a one-million-dollar diamond-covered golden tennis racket. This museum in the diamond capital of the world also featured exhibits on the local silver-working trade that went hand-in-hand with much of the gemological history.

Trade, Printing, Art, and More in This Dutch-Speaking Belgian Duchy

Antwerp is in the north of Belgium. It’s about ten miles (16.1km) from the Dutch border and 62.7 miles (101 km) from Rotterdam. Though Belgium has three official languages—French, Dutch, and German—the dialect of Flemish Dutch is spoken by most of the citizens in Antwerp.

Before the city became the diamond capital of the world, Antwerp hit its stride at the end of the medieval period, becoming a key trading hub. Antwerp’s proximity to the English Channel and the North Sea made it a commercial and trading capital in the 1400s. Some historians believe that half of the earth’s trade passed through Antwerp during its Renaissance heyday.

An early stock trade opened in the 1460s—believed to be the world’s first. The Flemish school of painting thrived alongside countless merchants of cloth and spices. Soon after Guttenberg invented movable type in Germany, Antwerp even became a hub for printing houses and publishers.

I Only Know Train Station, the Diamond Square Mile

In 1866, the discovery of enormous diamond deposits in Africa (since then, diamonds have even been found in Arkansas) sent the diamond trade in Antwerp into its ascendancy. It was no longer just the bigger trade alongside many others in the city. At roughly the same time, trains began to crisscross Europe, and diamond traders set up shop near what is today Antwerpen-Centraal or the Antwerp Central Train Station.

While first-level ore-refining and the creation of industrial diamonds have moved to China and other lower-labor-cost nations, the heart of the diamond trade, science, and art is still in Antwerp. It maintains its spot as the diamond capital of the world.

Today, Hovenierstraat, right by that train station, is the heart of the Diamond District.

Shine Bright Like a Diamond. Antwerp remains on the cutting edge of the diamond world.