An important river of Belgium and Holland, rises in the French dep. of Aisne, and flows northwards past Cambrai (its highest navigable point) and Valenciennes, entering Belgium a little S. of Tournay and continuing northward, with Oudenarde, Ghent, and Antwerp on its banks; enters Holland, and at the island of S. Beveland splits into the Wester Scheldt and the Ooster Scheldt, which enter the North Sea, the former at Flushing, the latter at Bergen-op-Zoom; length 267 m., much the greater part being in Belgium.