Brussels’ giant flower carpet: one square, 600.000 flowers

Ever seen 600,000 flowers on one historic market square? You can in Belgium! Every two years in August, the Grand Place in Brussels is covered with a sea of flowers for three days in a row. This year is the 20th edition so to mark the occasion we’ve collected pictures of all previous editions, starting with 1971! 

 75 meters long, 24 meter wide. That’s the size of the Flower Carpet that covers the entire market square of our capital in the middle of August.  The carpet consists almost entirely of begonias, as much as 600,000! That’s about 300 flowers per square meter…  And can you believe it only takes 4 hours to assemble the piece of art? That’s because it’s done by 120 volunteers. All carpets throughout the years have been designed with different themes in mind. A trip down memory lane:

1971

Theme: inspired by flower carpets in different Flemish cities

1980

Theme: Celebrating the 150th birthday of Belgium

1988

Theme: a Chinese flower carpet

1990

Theme: Mozart

1994

Theme: Fiftieth anniversary of the Liberation of Brussels.

1998

Theme: The clothes of nomadic tribes in northeastern Turkey

2000

Theme: Brussels lace

2006

Theme: symbols of the alchemy of the Middle Ages

2008

Theme: French designs from the eighteenth century

2016

Theme: celebrating the 150 years of friendship between Belgium and Japan

Fun facts

• There’s a balcony too! Post your panoramic selfies with the hashtag #Brusselsandme.
• On all three nights there is a light and sound spectacle around the carpet.
• Can’t make it to see the real live carpet? You can admire a mini version until the end of this year at the Mini-Europe park in Brussels.
• Click here here to see a timelapse video of last year’s carpet.