Eckelrade

Eckelrade Ikkelder
Village
Coordinates: 50°48′24″N 5°45′56″E / 50.80667°N 5.76556°ECoordinates: 50°48′24″N 5°45′56″E / 50.80667°N 5.76556°E
Country	Netherlands
Province	Limburg (Netherlands)
Municipality	Eijsden-Margraten
Population (2007)	560

Eckelrade street in the hilly southern part of Limburg

Eckelrade (Limburgish: Ikkelder) (50°48′N 5°46′E / 50.800°N 5.767°E) is a village in the Dutch province of Limburg. It is part of the municipality of Eijsden-Margraten, and situated about 8 km southeast of the town of Maastricht.

Eckelrade has about 580 inhabitants. The built-up area of the hamlet was 0.04 km², and contained 59 residences.^[1]

Trivia

This village is probably the only place on Earth where yearly a contest in cherry stone spitting is held. If so, than the winner can call himself the world champion in this discipline. (Spectators by the way for understandable reasons use to bring an umbrella, when they visit the battlefield).^[2]

This village by the way is the more unique due to the fact that it probably is the only one, that in history for a long time has been part of four municipalities at the same time and later on of two. (Until 1828 parts of it belonged to Gronsveld, to Breust, to Rijckholt and to Valkenburg. From 1828 until 1982 it was part of Sint Geertruid and of Gronsveld, whereas in the last mentioned year it completely became part of Margraten).

But it is said that before 1828 a criminal could easily avoid apprehension by simply crossing the street, as there was little or no juridical coördination between the several municipalities the village then partly belonged to.

References

1. Statistics Netherlands (CBS), Bevolkingskernen in Nederland 2001 . Statistics are for the continuous built-up area.
2. Trivia Eckelrade on NlWp