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The union, technically stretching between two kingdoms, gave the area economic and political stability which led to an even greater prosperity and artistic creation. This prosperity played a role in conflicts between Flanders and the king of France. The lordships and bishoprics along the « March » (frontier) between the two great kingdoms maintained important connections between each other. In 870 in the Treaty of Meerssen, modern Belgium lands all became part of the western kingdom for a period, but in 880 in the Treaty of Ribemont, Lotharingia came under the lasting control of the eastern kingdom, which became the Holy Roman Empire. Over the centuries, it was divided up in many ways, but the Treaty of Verdun in 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms whose borders had a lasting impact on medieval political boundaries. Following Caesar’s conquests, Gallia Belgica became the Latin name for a large Roman province encompassing most of Northern Gaul, including the lands of the Belgae and Treveri.

Belgium Country Factsheet

Belgium subsequently has one of the oldest populations in the world, with an average age of 41.6 years. The Brussels-Capital Region (Brussels) had a population of 1,249,597 (10.6% of Belgium), consisting of 19 municipalities, its most populous cities being the City of Brussels (197,000), Schaerbeek (130,000), and Anderlecht (127,000). The Walloon Region (Wallonia) had a population of 3,692,283 (31.4% of Belgium), its most populous cities being Charleroi (204,000), Liège (196,000), and Namur (114,000). As of January 2024, the Flemish Region (Flanders) had a population of 6,821,770 (58.0% of Belgium), its most populous cities being Antwerp (545,000), Ghent (270,000), and Bruges (120,000).

• An estimated 60% of the Belgian population are native speakers of Dutch (often referred to as Flemish), and 40% of the population speaks French natively.
• These include economy, employment, agriculture, water policy, housing, public works, energy, transport, the environment, town and country planning, nature conservation, credit and foreign trade.
• The 2014 federal election (coinciding with the regional elections) resulted in a further electoral gain for the Flemish nationalist N-VA.
• François Englert (Université libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013.
• Belgium was the first continental European country to undergo the Industrial Revolution, in the early 19th century.

Belgium covers an area of 30,689 km2 (11,849 sq mi) and has a population of more than 11.8 million; its population density of 383/km2 (990/sq mi) ranks 22nd in the world and sixth in Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the south, and the North Sea to the west. Belgium,b officially the Kingdom of Belgium,c is a country in Northwestern Europe. Any partnerships or business relationships we may have with any transportation service providers do not influence the ranking of these services. When you enter a destination in Google Maps, we show you how to get there by different travel modes, like driving, cycling, or walking. You can get directions for driving, public transit, walking, ride sharing, cycling, flight, or motorcycle on Google Maps.

Migration

• As of January 2024, the Flemish Region (Flanders) had a population of 6,821,770 (58.0% of Belgium), its most populous cities being Antwerp (545,000), Ghent (270,000), and Bruges (120,000).
• Sociologist Jan Hertogen estimated that in 2022 approximately 9.6% of the Belgian population was Muslim.
• Following Caesar’s conquests, Gallia Belgica became the Latin name for a large Roman province encompassing most of Northern Gaul, including the lands of the Belgae and Treveri.
• This was part of World War I. The opening months of the war were very bad in Belgium.
• The bicameral federal parliament is composed of a Senate and a Chamber of Representatives.

However, the incumbent coalition (composed of Flemish and French-speaking Social Democrats, Liberals, and Christian Democrats) maintained a solid majority in Parliament and all electoral constituencies. He appoints ministers, including a Prime Minister, that have the confidence of the Chamber of Representatives to form the federal government. Since the 1970s, sports clubs are organised separately by each language community. Many other major authors, including Peyo, André Franquin, Edgar P. Jacobs and Willy Vandersteen brought the Belgian cartoon strip industry a worldwide fame. Flanders and Wallonia both also have their own regional governments, and there is a notable independence movement in Flanders. The Administration de l’Éducation Physique et du Sport (ADEPS) is responsible for recognising the various French-speaking sports federations and also runs three sports centres in the Brussels-Capital Region.

Economy

In the aftermath of the First World War, Belgium annexed the Prussian districts of Eupen and Malmedy in 1925, thereby causing the presence of a German-speaking minority. The Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648) was triggered by the Spanish government’s policy towards Protestantism, which was becoming popular in the Low Countries. During the 5th century, the area came under the rule of the Frankish Merovingian kings, who initially established a kingdom ruling over the Romanized population in what is now northern France, and then conquered the other Frankish kingdoms.

Military

In May 2019 federal elections in the Flemish-speaking northern region of Flanders, the far-right Vlaams Belang party made major gains. As the central government of the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the provinces of Belgica and Germania were inhabited by a mix of Romanized populations and Germanic-speaking Franks, who came to dominate the military and political spheres. Since 1993, Belgium is a federal state, divided into three regions and three communities. To look after all these groups, Belgium has a complex system of government with highly autonomous regions. The population is about 60% Dutch-speaking, 39% French-speaking, and 1% German-speaking (the so-called Deutschbelgier). The regions are mainly based on language and culture.

Currently, the Belgian Marine Component is working closely together with the Dutch Navy under the command of the Admiral Benelux. The Belgians, along with the Luxembourg government, sent a detachment of battalion strength to fight in Korea known as the Belgian United Nations Command. Belgium has troops deployed in several African countries as part of UN or EU missions, in Iraq for the war against the Islamic State, and in eastern Europe for the NATO presence there. The Belgian Armed Forces had 23,200 active personnel in 2023, including 8,500 in the Land Component, 1,400 in the Naval Component, 4,900 in the Air Component, 1,450 in the Medical Component, and 6,950 in joint service, in addition to 5,900 reserve personnel. The treaty-making power of the Regions’ and Communities’ Governments is the broadest of all the Federating units of all the Federations all over the world. These include economy, employment, agriculture, water policy, housing, public works, energy, transport, the environment, town and country planning, nature conservation, credit and foreign trade.

Where is Belgium located?

French-speaking Belgians are often referred to as Walloons, although the French speakers in Brussels are not Walloons.p However, various criteria, including the language(s) of parents, of education, or the second-language status of foreign born, may provide suggested figures. Since then, Flanders has been prosperous, among the wealthiest regions in Europe, whereas Wallonia has been languishing. In the 1980s and 1990s, the economic center of the country continued to shift northwards and is now concentrated in the populous Flemish Diamond area. With education, for instance, the autonomy of the Communities neither includes decisions about the compulsory aspect nor allows for setting minimum requirements for awarding qualifications, which remain federal matters. The budget—without the debt—controlled by the federal government amounts to about 50% of the national fiscal income.

Since the 1970s, sports clubs and federations are organized separately within each language community. Folklore plays a major role in Belgium’s cultural life; the country has a comparatively high number of processions, cavalcades, parades, ommegangs, ducasses,s kermesses, and other local festivals, nearly always with an originally religious or mythological background. Belgian contributions to architecture also continued into the 19th and 20th centuries, including the work of Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde, who were major initiators of the Art Nouveau style. Despite its political and linguistic divisions, the region corresponding to today’s Belgium has seen the flourishing of major artistic movements that have had tremendous influence on European art and culture. The Flemish Community scores noticeably above the French and German-speaking Communities. The Belgian health care system is supervised and financed by the federal government, the Flemish and Walloon Regional governments; and the German Community also has (indirect) oversight and responsibilities.

As no census exists, there are no official statistical data regarding the distribution or usage of Belgium’s three official languages or their dialects. According to the data, as of 1 January 2021, 67.3% of the Belgian population was of ethnic Belgian origin, and 32.7% were of foreign origin or nationality, with 20.3% of those of a foreign nationality or ethnic group originating from neighbouring countries. Statbel released figures of the Belgian population in relation to the origin of people in Belgium. At the beginning of 2012, people of foreign background and their descendants were estimated to have formed around 25% of the total population i.e. 2.8 million new Belgians. In 2007, there were 1.38 million foreign-born residents in Belgium, corresponding to 12.9% of the total population. As of 2007update, nearly 92% of the population had Belgian citizenship, and other European Union member citizens account for around 6%.

During the 19th and 20th centuries many original romantic, expressionist and surrealist Belgian painters emerged, including James Ensor and other artists belonging to the Les XX group, Constant Permeke, Paul Delvaux and René Magritte. The Mosan art, the Early Netherlandish, the Flemish Renaissance and Baroque painting and major examples of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture are milestones in the history of art. Since the 1970s, there are no bilingual universities or colleges in the country except the Royal Military Academy and the Antwerp Maritime Academy.

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In 1908, this outcry led the Belgian state to assume responsibility for the government of the colony, henceforth called the Belgian Congo. From around 1900 there was growing international concern for the extreme and savage treatment of the Congolese population under Leopold II, for whom the Congo was primarily a source of revenue from ivory and rubber production. French was originally the official language used by the nobility and the bourgeoisie, especially after the rejection of the Dutch monarchy. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party and the Liberal Party, with the Belgian Labour Party emerging towards the end of the 19th century. Since the installation of Leopold I as king on 21 July 1831, now celebrated as Belgium’s National Day, Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a laicist constitution based on the Napoleonic Code. This buffer state, located between the major European powers, united the former territories of the Dutch Republic, the Austrian Netherlands and the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, under King William I of Orange.

Belgium is a constitutional, popular monarchy and a federal parliamentary democracy. Unlike previous calculations, this one included the area from the coast to the low-water line, revealing the country to be 160 km2 (62 sq mi) larger in surface area than previously thought. However, when the country’s statistics were measured in 2018, a new calculation method was used. After World War II, a general strike forced King Leopold III to abdicate in 1951 in favour of his son, Prince Baudouin, since many Belgians thought he had collaborated with Germany during the war. German forces again invaded the country in May 1940, and 40,690 Belgians, over half of them Jews, were killed during the subsequent occupation and the Holocaust.

Fine arts

Nowadays, to a certain extent, cultural life is concentrated within each language Community, and a variety of barriers have made a shared cultural sphere less pronounced. Though an estimated 99% of the adult population is literate, concern is rising over functional illiteracy. Muslims constituted 24.1% of the population of Brussels, 8% of Wallonia and 7.6% of Flanders. Sociologist Jan Hertogen estimated that in 2022 approximately 9.6% of the Belgian population was Muslim.

Belgium assumed control of the German colonies of Ruanda-Urundi (modern-day Rwanda and Burundi) during the war, and in 1924 the League of Nations mandated them to Belgium. The opening months of the war were known as the Rape of Belgium due to German excesses. Germany invaded Belgium in August 1914 as part of the Schlieffen Plan to attack France, and much of the Western Front fighting of World War I occurred in western parts of the country. A Belgian commission in 1919 estimated that Congo’s population was half what it was in 1879.

Extensions to personal matters less directly connected with language comprise health policy (curative and preventive medicine) and assistance to individuals (protection of youth, social welfare, aid to families, immigrant assistance services, and so on.). The Federal State’s authority includes justice, defense, federal police, social security, nuclear energy, monetary policy and public debt, and other aspects of public finances. Although this would allow for seven parliaments and governments when the Communities and Regions were created in 1980, Flemish politicians decided to merge both. The constitutional language areas determine the official languages in their municipalities, as well as the geographical limits of the empowered institutions for specific matters. Until December 2011, Belgium was governed by Leterme’s caretaker government awaiting the end of the deadlocked negotiations for formation of vegas casino apk a new government.

On 22 April 2010, Leterme again offered the resignation of his cabinet to the King after one of the coalition partners, the OpenVLD, withdrew from the government, and on 26 April 2010 King Albert officially accepted the resignation. A few hours later, the new government under Prime Minister Yves Leterme was sworn in. After Herman Van Rompuy was designated the first permanent President of the European Council on 19 November 2009, he offered the resignation of his government to King Albert II on 25 November 2009. The government promoted active diplomacy in Africa and opposed the invasion of Iraq. The bicameral federal parliament is composed of a Senate and a Chamber of Representatives.

Subsequently, Roman Belgica was divided into two parts, and the regions closer to the lower Rhine frontier, such as the eastern part of modern Belgium, were incorporated into the frontier province of Germania Inferior. Additionally, the area around Arlon in southern Belgium was part of the territory of the powerful Treveri tribe, whose lands extended into present-day Luxembourg and adjacent regions of France and Germany. This has resulted in several far-reaching state reforms, including the transition from a unitary to federal structure between 1970 and 1993.

After World War II, the people made king Leopold III leave his throne in 1951. The country was again invaded by Germany in 1940 and under German control until 1944. During the war Belgium took over Ruanda-Urundi (modern-day Rwanda and Burundi). This was part of World War I. The opening months of the war were very bad in Belgium.