This gallery offers a selection of picture postcards of Belgian cities and villages before 1914. The images were chosen to allow a comparison with the current situation. The exact GPS coordinates where the picture was taken are included and can be seen on the accompanying map (To view the map for a photo with Geo Data, click on the photo to open lightbox view and select the Photo Details icon (i) in the upper left corner.)

Some places have changed considerably in the course of a century, others not all that much. Street patterns often remained similar and some prewar architecture was spared from the sledgehammer. In a few cases though modernity has striken hard, and thorough. During World War I some of the places pictured here were totally or partly destroyed (Ypres, Dixmude, Leuven) and had to be rebuilt.