Long before “wellness” became a trillion-dollar global industry of retreats, detoxes and designer treatments, it was rooted in a small town in eastern Belgium. The very word “spa” comes from Spa, a forest-ringed town whose mineral springs shaped how Europe understood health, leisure and the healing power of water.
Spa, whose name became an eponym for mineral baths with supposed curative properties, is one of Belgium’s most popular tourist destinations. Spa is renowned for its natural mineral springs and the globally exported “Spa” mineral water. The town staged the world’s first beauty pageant, the Concours de Beauté, on September 19, 1888.
For centuries, Spa set the template for combining medicine, ritual, architecture and sociability around natural springs.
Spa’s springs were known in Roman times and were recorded by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder. Historians trace the town's name to old Germanic words such as spau or spaha, referring to water that bubbles or gushes from the ground.
By the Middle Ages, word had spread about Spa’s acidic, iron-rich waters and their supposed curative powers. The town’s earliest visitors came not to bathe but to drink. “Drinking therapy” defined Spa’s early reputation, and iron-stained fountains in the town centre still bear witness to that era.
One of the most famous early visitors was Russia’s Tsar Peter the Great, who travelled to Spa in 1717 and reportedly consumed more than 20 cups of the mineral water a day in search of relief from digestive ailments.
The shift from drinking to bathing began in the 16th century, after a physician published a treatise praising the therapeutic properties of Spa’s waters. By the 18th century, the town had evolved into one of Europe’s most fashionable resorts.
Under King Leopold II of Belgium in the late 19th Century, Spa was reimagined as the “pearl of the Ardennes”. Grand bathhouses, promenades and villas transformed it into a social hub for aristocrats, intellectuals and artists. Visitors included René Descartes and Voltaire. To “take the waters” in Spa was as much about being seen as being cured.
Over time, the word “spa” detached from its geographic origins. What began as a specific practice tied to mineral springs became shorthand for a vast global industry — encompassing thermal bathing, beauty treatments, longevity clinics and holistic therapies.
In 2021, Spa was inscribed as part of the Unesco-listed “Great Spa Towns of Europe”, recognising its architectural heritage and enduring bathing culture. The modern Thermes de Spa, opened in 2004 on a wooded hillside above town, continues the bathing tradition with pools fed by the same mineral-rich waters that drew Roman travellers. Historic properties have also been revived, blending 19th-century grandeur with contemporary hospitality.
Today, “spa” may conjure images of scented candles and massage menus, far removed from iron-rich fountains and royal pavilions. Yet the essential idea — that water, ritual and environment can restore both body and spirit — was refined in Spa centuries ago.
In lending its name to the world, this Belgian town also gave shape to a global language of self-care — one still rooted in bubbling springs beneath the Ardennes hills.
