Queen Astrid Park, Public park in central Charleroi, Belgium

Queen Astrid Park is a public park of 2 ha 10 ca in central Charleroi, laid out by city architect Auguste Cador with landscape architect J. Duquenne. At its centre stands a rustic wooden music kiosk with a conical thatched roof on carved branch-like posts, rebuilt in the same style after a 1914 fire. The grounds hold ten ginkgo biloba and a purple beech planted on 4 October 1930.

After Charleroi's fortifications were demolished in the late 1860s, the city approved a plan in 1867 for two parks; only this one was built, reduced from 3 to 2 ha 10 ca. City architect Auguste Cador and landscape architect J. Duquenne designed it, inspired by Louis Fuchs, and it opened in 1882. It was renamed in October 1935 for Queen Astrid, months after her death.

The central music kiosk, built in 1882, burned during the First World War and was rebuilt in 1920. Nearby, a plaque inaugurated in 2017 commemorates the victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi and the ten Belgian peacekeepers killed in Rwanda. A bronze equestrian statue of Lucky Luke, erected in 1994 on the rue Willy Ernst side, stands in the park.

The park lies in central Charleroi and is reached directly from the Parc metro station. The war memorials and the pigeon memorial stand on the boulevard Defontaine side, the equestrian statue of Lucky Luke on the rue Willy Ernst side. The kiosk and the 2017 Rwanda plaque are near the middle of the grounds.

The kiosk standing in the park today is not the 1882 original: that one burned down in 1914 and was rebuilt in the same rustic style, which the Dutch source dates to 1920. Near it, a plaque inaugurated in 2017 commemorates the victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi and the ten Belgian peacekeepers killed in Rwanda.