Hoogstraten (originally Hoogstraeten) has a population of over 20,000, and lies in Flanders at the northern border of Belgium within an enclave surrounded on three sides by the Netherlands.

Passing travellers would pay for a meal of bread and stew and the opportunity to lie on a straw pallet in an upper room for the night while their horse was tended in a stable attached to the cottage.

Apart from the innkeeper who probably also sold beer, most of the men in Hoogstraten laboured for the principal landowner while their wives tended to the family.

There was no natural lake or hill around which the cottages might have been grouped so the town's focus was the main street, the "Vrijheid".

The number of houses had grown to more than a hundred fine upstanding wooden buildings some three stories high.

In 1740 Hoogstraten was elevated to a Duchy by Emperor Charles VI, but barely half a century later, during French rule, it lost its titles of 'town' and 'duchy.'

The status of a town often depended on whether the townspeople were considered supporters or not, so one might infer that the area was seen to have anti-French feeling.

The Vlaamse Aardbeiencross is a February cyclo-cross race held in Hoogstraten, Belgium, which is part of the Superprestige.