The name appears in the form
Viroviacum in the
Antonine Itinerary and the
Peutinger map of settlements in the 3rd century. It was here that the Roman road from
Tournai to
Cassel crossed the
Lys (a tributary of the
Scheldt). It had a fortified post, of which traces are still visible. It was mentioned by
Sanderus in his "Flandria illustrata" in the sixteenth century. For centuries, Werviq-Sud and Wervik were one unified settlement and belonged to the
County of Flanders, an autonomous but tributary principality to French kings. In 1527 by the
Treaty of Madrid it passed under the suzerainty of the Spanish empire. The town was during the sixteenth century the main centre of
tobacco production in Europe. It remained dependent on
Spain until
Louis XIV's conquest in 1667. Subsequently the town passed on to Austrian Empire then back to French. It wasn't until 1713 that Werviq-Sud was finally separated from Wervik when the
Treaty of Utrecht led to the river Lys becoming a border splitting the French and Austrian territories in this area. The town's right (south) bank become a part of the Nord department under the name Wervicq-Sud in 1790. There was a small uprising here after the 1830
Belgian Revolution. Locals, together with those in nearby
Bousbecque and a small number from
Comines, demanded reunification with their Belgian counterparts on the other side of the Lys. This ended after an intervention of the
Gendarmes. During
World War I the town was occupied by the Germans. In
World War II it was integrated into the
Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France and reunited with its Belgian counterpart
Wervik.
Heraldry ==Population==