Olen

Olen is a municipality located within the Belgian province of Antwerp. The municipality incorporates 3 towns, located on a south-north axis. South of the highway E313 and the Albert Canal is Olen proper, additionally called Olen-Centrum. Between the Albert Canal and Olen station railroad from Antwerp to Neerpelt and Hasselt is the town of Boekel, additionally called Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Olen parish or Achter-Olen Behind-Olen. North of the railroad is the city of St.-Jozef-Olen, also referred to as Olen-Fabriek Olen-Factory, a refinery along the vintage canal Herentals-Bocholt that become at its beginning. On January 1, 2015, Olen had a complete population of 12,239. The overall vicinity is 23.10 km².

In the 1920s and 1930s the Union Miniere du Haut Katanga enterprise, working within the then Belgian colony of Congo, had a digital monopoly of the sector uranium market preserving maximum of the deposits recognized on the time. The uranium mined in Congo changed into on the whole transported to the UMHK refinery for uranium ore which became placed in Olen. Some 1200 tonnes of uranium stored at the Olen refinery were captured through the Germans during the invasion and career of Belgium in 1940, and handiest recovered by means of US troops at the stop of World War 2.