Portal:Belgium

Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern 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 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. The capital and largest metropolitan region is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven.

Belgium is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a complex federal system structured on regional and linguistic grounds. The country is divided into three highly autonomous regions: the Flemish Region (Flanders) in the north, the Walloon Region (Wallonia) in the south, and the Brussels-Capital Region in the middle. Belgium is also home to two main linguistic communities: the Dutch-speaking Flemish Community, which constitutes about 60 percent of the population, and the French-speaking French Community, which constitutes about 40 percent of the population; a small German-speaking Community, comprising around one percent of the population, exists in the East Cantons. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Belgium is a developed country with an advanced high-income economy. It is one of the six founding members of the European Union, with its capital of Brussels serving as the de facto capital of the EU, hosting the official seats of the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, and one of two seats of the European Parliament (the other being Strasbourg). Brussels also hosts the headquarters of many major international organizations, such as NATO.

In antiquity, present-day Belgium was dominated by the Belgae before being annexed into the Roman Empire in the mid first century BC. During the Middle Ages, Belgium's central location kept it relatively prosperous and connected both commercially and politically to its larger neighbours; it was part of the Carolingian Empire, the succeeding Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently the Burgundian Netherlands. Following rule by Habsburg Spain (1556–1714), the Austrian Habsburgs (1714–1794), and Revolutionary France (1794–1815), most of modern-day Belgium was incorporated into the United Kingdom of the Netherlands after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Centuries of being contested and controlled by various European powers earned Belgium the moniker "the Battlefield of Europe", a reputation reinforced in the 20th century by both world wars. (Full article...)

Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

The Battle of Waterloo, by William Sadler II

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo (then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium), marking the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The French Imperial Army under the command of Napoleon I was defeated by two armies of the Seventh Coalition. One was a British-led force with units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of field marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. The other comprised three corps of the Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher. The battle was known contemporaneously as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean in France (after the hamlet of Mont-Saint-Jean) and La Belle Alliance in Prussia ("the Beautiful Alliance"; after the inn of La Belle Alliance).

Upon Napoleon's return to power in March 1815, the beginning of the Hundred Days, many states that had previously opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition to oppose him again, and hurriedly mobilised their armies. Wellington's and Blücher's armies were cantoned close to the northeastern border of France. Napoleon planned to attack them separately, before they could link up and invade France with other members of the coalition. On 16 June, Napoleon successfully attacked the bulk of the Prussian Army at the Battle of Ligny with his main force, while a small portion of the French Imperial Army contested the Battle of Quatre Bras to prevent the Seventh Coalition army from reinforcing the Prussians. The Seventh Coalition army held their ground at Quatre Bras, and on the 17th, the Prussians withdrew from Ligny in good order, while Wellington then withdrew in parallel with the Prussians northward to Waterloo on 17 June. Napoleon sent a third of his forces to pursue the Prussians, which resulted in the separate Battle of Wavre with the Prussian rear-guard on 18–19 June and prevented that French force from participating at Waterloo. (Full article...)

List of recognized articles

...that paling in 't groen (pictured) is a Flemish dish of eel in a green herb sauce?
...that Leopold II's mistress Caroline Lacroix was so loathed by the Belgian public that on one occasion, her carriage was stoned in Brussels?
...that a Bruges building dating to 1399 now houses a museum dedicated to fries?

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Featured pictures are displayed here, which represent the finest images on English Wikipedia.

Image 1
Hélène Dutrieu
Photo credit: Bain News Service
Hélène Dutrieu, shown here in her aeroplane ca. 1911, was the fourth woman in the world (the first from Belgium) to earn a pilot's license and reputedly the first woman to carry passengers and to fly a seaplane. Besides being a pilot, she was a cycling world champion, stunt cyclist, stunt motorcyclist, automobile racer, wartime ambulance driver, and director of a military hospital.
Image 2
Louis-Marie Autissier
A self-portrait of Louis-Marie Autissier (1772–1830), a French-born Belgian portrait miniature painter. He is considered the founder of the Belgian school of miniature painting in the nineteenth century. Born at Vannes, in Brittany, he joined the French Revolutionary Army at Rennes in 1791. On leaving the army in 1795, Autissier went to Paris and trained his art by studying paintings at the Louvre. In 1796 he settled in Brussels, but continued to divide his time between Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. Although he enjoyed great success in his career, serving as court painter to Louis Napoleon, French King of the Netherlands, and later to Willem I, Autissier died penniless.
Image 3
Poeke Castle
Photo: Marc Ryckaert
Poeke Castle is a castle near Poeke, Belgium. Standing on 56 hectares of park, the castle is surrounded by water and is accessible through bridges at the front and rear of the building.
Image 4
Thorntonbank Wind Farm
Photo credit: Hans Hillewaert
Wind turbines belonging to the Thorntonbank Wind Farm located in the North Sea, 28 km (17 mi) off the coast of Belgium. Electricity generation started in early 2009, with an initial capacity of 30 MW, and that number is expected to rise to 300 MW by 2015. A 37 km (23 mi) 150 kV undersea cable connects the wind farm to the shore.
Image 5
Averbode Abbey
Photograph credit: Marc Ryckaert
Averbode Abbey is a Premonstratensian abbey in Averbode, in the municipality of Scherpenheuvel-Zichem, Belgium. The abbey was founded about 1134, suppressed in 1797, and re-established in 1834. The church is a synthesis of Baroque and Gothic architecture, with Renaissance ornamental details, and dominates the monastery complex; it was built between 1664 and 1672, to a design by the Antwerp architect Jan Van den Eynde II. This view of the church's interior shows the chancel, with the choir in the foreground and the sanctuary in the background.
Image 6
SNCB Class 77
Photograph: Marc Ryckaert
The SNCB Class 77 is a class of 4-axle B'B' diesel-hydraulic locomotive designed for shunting and freight work. It was manufactured at the beginning of the 2000s by Siemens Schienenfahrzeugtechnik, and later by Vossloh at the Maschinenbau Kiel plant in Kiel, Germany, for the National Railway Company of Belgium (SNCB/NMBS).
Image 7
Ghent
Photograph: Joaquim Alves Gaspar
The Graslei harbour is a popular destination in the Belgian city of Ghent. It is found in the city centre.
Image 8
Dogcart
Image credit: Detroit Publishing Co.
A photochrom from the late 19th century showing two peddlers selling milk from a dogcart near Brussels, Belgium. Dog-drawn carts were prohibited in Great Britain in the early 1900s on animal welfare grounds, but some still exist in France and Belgium. The modern-day sport of carting involves large dogs pulling carts.
Image 9
Flat-four engine
Photograph: ULPower Aero Engines
The ULPower UL260i, a flat-four engine produced by ULPower Aero Engines of Belgium. Flat-four engines are flat engines with four cylinders arranged horizontally in two banks of two cylinders on each side of a central crankcase; they can be used in cars, motorcycles, or aircraft. This type of engine tends to be well-balanced and have efficient cooling, but is expensive to manufacture and considerably wider than other engines.
Image 10
V-2 rocket attack
Photo credit: Ingeldew, T3c, U.S. Army
The smouldering body of a boy killed by a V-2 rocket attack on the main intersection in Antwerp, Belgium, November 27, 1944, on the main Allied supply line to the Netherlands. The V-2, one of the German Vergeltungswaffen, was the first ballistic missile and first man-made object to achieve sub-orbital spaceflight. Over 3,000 V-2s were launched as military rockets by the Wehrmacht against Allied targets in World War II.
Image 11
Stunt performer
Photo credit: Luc Viatour
Pyrotechnics stunt exhibition by "Giant Auto Rodéo", a Belgian stunt performer group. Stunt performers typically perform stunts for films or television programs. Stunts are sometimes rigged so that they look dangerous while still having safety mechanisms, but often they are as dangerous as they appear to be.
Image 12
Land sailing
Photo credit: Bain News Service
An early 20th-century sail wagon, used in the sport of land sailing, in Brooklyn, New York. Land sailing is the act of moving across land in a wheeled vehicle powered by wind through the use of a sail. Although land yachts have existed since Ancient Egypt, the modern sport was born in Belgium in 1898.
Image 13
Sunrise, Inverness Copse
Drawing credit: Paul Nash
Sunrise, Inverness Copse, is a 1918 artwork by the British war artist Paul Nash. It shows a desolate Western Front landscape at Inverness Copse, near Ypres in Belgium; the sun is rising over the hills to reveal shattered trees standing among mounds of earth and an expanse of mud, pock-marked by shell-holes and devoid of vegetation. The pen-and-ink drawing, with watercolour and chalk, is held by the Imperial War Museum in London.

After a period serving in the Artists Rifles following the outbreak of the First World War, Nash was commissioned as an officer in the Hampshire Regiment. He was sent to Flanders in February 1917, but was invalided back to London in May 1917, a few days before his unit was nearly obliterated at the Battle of Messines. Nash became an official war artist and returned to the Ypres Salient, where he was shocked by the devastation caused by war. In six weeks on the Western Front, he completed what he called "fifty drawings of muddy places". He later used this drawing as the basis for his 1918 oil painting We Are Making a New World.
Image 14
Averbode Abbey
Photograph: JH-man
Averbode Abbey, founded about 1134–35 by Count Arnold II of Loon, is a Premonstratensian monastery situated in the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels in Belgium. The abbey reached its peak in the 16th and 17th centuries, though over the past hundred years it has been in a state of decline.
Image 15
Belgian franc
Coin design credit: Kingdom of Belgium; photographed by the National Numismatic Collection
The Belgian franc was the currency of the Kingdom of Belgium from 1832 until 2002, when the euro was introduced. The Belgian mint was innovative, and in 1860, the country became the first to introduce coins made of cupronickel. A few years later, in 1865, Belgium formed the Latin Monetary Union with France, Switzerland and Italy (Greece joined the system later), which facilitated trade between the countries by setting standards by which gold and silver currency could be minted and exchanged.

This 40-franc gold coin was minted in 1835, and depicts Leopold I, the first king of the Belgians following the country's independence in 1830, on the obverse. The coin is now part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

... that the electoral victory of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress in 2018 led to DR Congo's first peaceful transition of power since its independence from Belgium in 1960?
... that Jopie and Teun Roosenburg led an art colony at Oost Castle that helped Jewish refugees escape the Nazi-occupied Netherlands to Belgium?
... that Belgian Resistance member Andrée Dumon was recommended for the US Medal of Freedom for "assisting directly in the recuperation and repatriation of about 100 Allied airmen"?
... that grand claims that the ruler of Mwene Muji once had imperial status were dismissed by Belgian colonial authorities?
... that in the 1980s, international LGBT organizations organized protests in Europe and the Americas in support of Belgian teacher Eliane Morissens?
... that an exhibition hall for the 1939 New York World's Fair later hosted athletic events at a historically Black university in Virginia?

1464: death of Roger van der Weyden, painter
1815: at the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte is defeated by the combined troops of the United Kingdom, the United Netherlands, and Prussia
1848: birth of Jacques Bouhy, baritone, one of the main stars in the first performance of Carmen by Georges Bizet
1865: death of Antoine Wiertz, Romantic painter and sculptor
1930: foundation of the INR, the national broadcasting company, forerunner of the VRT and the RTBF
1971: birth of C.J. Bolland, music producer and remixer
1975: birth of Marie Gillain, actress and model
1997: death of Edmond Leburton, politician, Prime Minister of Belgium between 1973 and 1974

More June anniversaries

The following are images from various Belgium-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A 1906 British Punch cartoon depicting Leopold II as a rubber vine entangling a Congolese man (from History of Belgium)
Image 2German soldiers examine an abandoned Belgian T13 Tank, 1940 (from History of Belgium)
Image 3Surviving Roman city walls in Tongeren, the former city of Atuatuca Tongrorum (from History of Belgium)
Image 4Poster for the 1920 Summer Olympics, held at Antwerp (from History of Belgium)
Image 5The gallows at Breendonk Concentration Camp, near Mechelen (from History of Belgium)
Image 6Commemorative Medal awarded to Belgian soldiers who had served during the Franco-Prussian War. (from History of Belgium)
Image 7Paul-Henri Spaak, three-times Prime Minister and author of the Spaak Report, was a staunch believer in international bodies, including the ECSC and EEC (from History of Belgium)
Image 814th-century illustration of the Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302 where forces from the County of Flanders defeated their nominal overlords of the Kingdom of France. (from History of Belgium)
Image 9The Roman province of Gallia Belgica in around 120 AD (from History of Belgium)
Image 10Belgian-Congolese Force Publique soldiers, 1943 (from History of Belgium)
Image 11Walloon workers demonstration in Brussels in the winter of 1960 (from History of Belgium)
Image 12Southern part of the Low Countries with bishopry towns and abbeys c. 7th century. Abbeys were the onset to larger villages and even some towns to reshape the landscape. (from History of Belgium)
Image 13French soldiers fight at Fleurus in Belgium during the Revolutionary Wars, 1794 (from History of Belgium)
Image 14The flag of Flanders incorporating the Flemish lion, also used by the Flemish Movement. (from History of Belgium)
Image 15The flag of the francophone pro-Nazi Rexist party (from History of Belgium)
Image 16Saint Servatius, bishop of Tongeren and one of the first known Christian figures in the region. 16th century reliquary. (from History of Belgium)
Image 17Cartoon of "The Rape of Belgium" showing giant hairy fist with Prussian eagle grasping maiden in flowing robes. (from History of Belgium)
Image 18Map showing the division of Brabant into Flemish Brabant (yellow), Walloon Brabant (red) and the Brussels-Capital Region (orange) in 1995 (from History of Belgium)
Image 19Elio Di Rupo, the Prime Minister of Belgium from 2011 until 2014 (from History of Belgium)
Image 20The natural regions of Belgium. (from Geography of Belgium)
Image 21Extreme points of Belgium (from Geography of Belgium)
Image 22Belgian F-16 conducts a combat patrol over Afghanistan, 2008 (from History of Belgium)
Image 23The Sack of Antwerp in 1576, in which 17,000 people died. (from History of Belgium)
Image 24Site of the massacre of Belgian UN personnel in Kigali, Rwanda. (from History of Belgium)
Image 25The Cinquantenaire/Jubelpark memorial arcade, built in 1905 (from History of Belgium)
Image 26Map of Belgian regions and provinces. (from Geography of Belgium)
Image 27Episode of the Belgian Revolution of 1830, Egide Charles Gustave Wappers (1834), in the Musée d'Art Ancien, Brussels (from History of Belgium)
Image 28Belgian soldier taking cover by the corpses of dead hostages, November 1964 in Stanleyville during Operation Dragon Rouge (from History of Belgium)
Image 29Painting of steel production in Ougrée by Constantin Meunier (1885) (from History of Belgium)
Image 30The Seventeen Provinces, and the Prince-Bishopric of Liège in green (from History of Belgium)
Image 31A historic street in Belgium (from History of Belgium)
Image 32The "Fusilade of Mons" during the 1893 strike as the Borains are fired on by the Garde Civique during the protests for universal suffrage. (from History of Belgium)
Image 33The Battle of Nieuwpoort (1600) (from History of Belgium)
Image 34A Belgian machine gunner at the front lines in 1918, firing a Chauchat machine gun. (from History of Belgium)
Image 35Flint knives discovered in Belgian caves (from History of Belgium)
Image 36Map showing the area of West Germany occupied by Belgian forces after the Second World War, known as FBA-BSD (from History of Belgium)
Image 37The first Belgian-produced steam locomotive, "The Belgian" ("Le Belge") built in 1835 (from History of Belgium)
Image 38The Siege of Maastricht (1579) by an anonymous painter (from History of Belgium)
Image 39Charles Michel, the Prime Minister of Belgium from 2014 until 2019 (from History of Belgium)
Image 40Equestrian Statue of Leopold II, Place du Trône/Troonplein, Brussels (from History of Belgium)

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