Kraainem/Crainhem metro station

Kraainem/Crainhem is a Brussels metro station in the municipality of Woluwe-St.-Lambert/St.-Lambrechts-Woluwe, Brussels. It is located near the intersection of the Wezembeeklaan (fr: Avenue de Wezembeek), Mounierlaan (Avenue Mounier), and Kraainemlaan (Avenue de Kraainem). It has a large park-and-ride lot and is also the terminus for a number of inbound regional bus routes of De Lijn as well as for the STIB/MIVB bus routes 30 and 31.

The station was inaugurated in 1988 with the extension of the Eastern branch of line 1B from Alma to Stockel/Stokkel. Due to its location in a park-and-ride lot, it is one of the few Brussels Metro stations that has its own station building on the surface (most other stations having only an underground mezzanine).

Originally, the station was just called "Kraainem", using only Dutch spelling, as it was technically named after the "Kraainemlaan" (fr: "Avenue de Kraainem") (a road using Dutch spelling for both its Dutch and French names), "not" after the nearby municipality (Dutch: "gemeente", French: "commune") of Kraainem. However, French speakers in the Brussels community quickly protested against what they regarded as a violation of bilingual language facilities and insisted that the French form "Crainhem" be added to the name of the station. Ironically enough, the name "Crainhem" is actually not French at all, but rather an obsolete Dutch spelling.

Thus the station is today usually held to be named after the municipality of Kraainem, even though it is not actually located on its territory.