Discover Laarbeek

Waterpoort van de Peel

What not to miss in Laarbeek

Laarbeek has a lot to offer. Which places should you really not miss during a day out or weekend away in Laarbeek? Here are all the tips and tops.

Enjoy the anticipation and welcome to Laarbeek!

Our tips and tops in Laarbeek!

From canals to nature reserves, from parks to gardens. Laarbeek has beautiful pieces of nature that are absolutely worth a visit. It was not without reason that our wooded municipality was named the greenest municipality in the Netherlands in 2016. The expert jury at the time praised all the flowers and plants in the village and therefore gave Laarbeek an 8.6. In 2017 another prize followed, Laarbeek was crowned greenest municipality of Europe!

A golden day
"What a great recognition for our beautiful green municipality and all those people who are committed to this. Because it's the people who make the difference. A golden day," according to councillor Meulensteen. In July of this year, the international jury of the Entente Florale Europe judged Laarbeek on all kinds of points; from the maintenance of public greenery and recreation and tourism to civic participation. "The Entente Florale is no longer the competition that revolves around the village or the town with the most beautiful and most flowers, as it was in the past," said jury chairman Martin Wagner from Austria. "Nowadays it is mainly about the policy that a village or city pursues in the field of green and sustainability and the involvement of the inhabitants."

History of Laarbeek

Laarbeek is a municipality in the Dutch province of North Brabant, partly located in the Meijer of Den Bosch and partly in De Peel. The municipality was created on 1 January 1997 by the merger of the former municipalities Aarle-Rixtel, Beek en Donk and Lieshout (which also included the church village Mariahout). The town hall is located in Beek en Donk. The municipality now has 22,665 inhabitants and a surface area of 55.86 km2.

Why the name Laarbeek?
But how did they arrive at the name Laarbeek? The inhabitants of the former municipalities of which Laarbeek was formed were allowed to submit a new name for the municipality themselves. Names such as Groenewoud, Bextelhout, Grotendonk or Laarlanden came up. But the final winner was Laarbeek, a combination of the terms 'Laar' (after the hamlet Het Laar, which forms the centre of the municipality) and 'Beek' (a reference to the various streams which cross the municipality, such as the Aa and the Goorloop). The name Laarbeek also consists of the parts of the former municipal names: the 'L' refers to Lieshout, 'Aar' to Aarle-Rixtel and 'Beek' to Beek en Donk. The merging into Laarbeek is symbolised by the work of art Accretio.