Joseph Amerlinck (1862–1915) was a Belgian railway engineer active in Central Africa and South America.
Life Amerlinck was born in Ghent on 22 May 1862.R. Campus, "Amerlinck (Joseph-Marie)", Biographie Nationale de Belgique, vol. 31 (Brussels, 1961), 24. After graduating from the School of Civil Engineering of Ghent University, in 1888 he set off for the Congo Free State,A. Engels, "Amerlinck (Joseph-Marie)", in Biographie Coloniale Belge, vol. 2 (1951), 15. to assess the feasibility of building a railway line from Lukungu to Leopoldville.Marina e commercio e giornale delle colonie, 11:22 (22 May 1888), p. 347. He later worked in Chile, where he briefly taught at the University of Santiago,A. Lederer, "Amerlinck (Joseph-Marie)", in Biographie Belge d'Outre-Mer, vol. 8 (1998), p. 1. and for about a decade in Guatemala, as director of a railway. Around 1905 he moved to Mexico, where his descendants became the family Amerlinck y Zirión.Eddy Stols, De Belgen en Mexico (Leuven University Press, 1993), p. 132. He died on 5 February 1915.
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