La Louviere

La Louviere is a Walloon town and municipality positioned in the Belgian province of Hainaut. La Louviere's municipality includes the antique communes of Haine-Saint-Paul, Haine-Saint-Pierre, Saint-Vaast, Trivieres, Boussoit, Houdeng-Aimeries, Houdeng-Gœgnies, Maurage, and Strepy-Bracquegnies. La Louviere is the capital of the Centre vicinity, a former coal mining region in the sillon industriel, between the Borinage to the West and the Pays Noir to the East.

The legend of a mother wolf nursing a baby at La Louviere is harking back to the mythical delivery of Rome. The proper foundation of the city, but, dates from the 12th century. At that time, the forested, and possibly wolf-infested, territory of these days’s La Louviere became named Menaulu, from the Old French which means “wolf’s lair”. This land became a part of the bigger network of Saint-Vaast, which itself belonged to the Aulne Abbey. By 1284, the call of the territory had been translated into Latin, then again into French to its modern call of La Louviere.