Belgium is a
sovereign state and a
federalconstitutional monarchy with a
parliamentary system. Its institutional organization is complex and is structured on both regional and linguistic grounds. It is divided into three highly
autonomousregions: the
Flemish Region (Flanders) in the north, the
Walloon Region (Wallonia) in the south, and the
Brussels-Capital Region. Brussels is the smallest and most densely populated region, as well as the richest region in terms of
GDP per capita. Belgium is also home to two main linguistic communities: the
Flemish Community, which constitutes about 60 percent of the population, and the
French Community, which constitutes about 40 percent of the population. A small
German-speaking Community, making up around one percent of the population, exists in the
East Cantons. The Brussels-Capital Region is officially bilingual in French and Dutch, although French is the majority language and lingua franca. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its complex system of governance, made up of
six different governments.
Since the
Middle Ages, Belgium's central location has meant that the area has been relatively prosperous, connected commercially and politically to its bigger neighbours. The country as it exists today was established following the 1830
Belgian Revolution, when it seceded from the
United Kingdom of the Netherlands, which had incorporated the
Southern Netherlands (which comprised most of modern-day Belgium) after the
Congress of Vienna in 1815. The name chosen for the new state is derived from the Latin word Belgium, used in
Julius Caesar's "
Gallic Wars", to describe a nearby region in the period around 55 BCE. Belgium has also been the battleground of European powers, earning the moniker "the Battlefield of Europe", a reputation reinforced in the 20th century by both
world wars. (Full article...)
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Van Dormael in November 2011
Jaco Van Dormael (born 9 February 1957) is a
Belgian film director, screenwriter and playwright. His films especially focus on a respectful and sympathetic portrayal of people with mental and physical
disabilities.
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.
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.
Portrait of Henriette Mayer van den Bergh, an
oil painting on canvas completed by the Belgian painter Jozef Van Lerius (1823–1876) in 1857. Van Lerius, a student of
Gustaf Wappers, was a teacher at the
Royal Academy of Fine Arts in
Antwerp from age 31. He was known primarily for his mythological and biblical scenes, as well as his portraits and
genre pictures. The subject, Henriette Mayer van den Bergh, was the mother of the art collector Fritz Mayer van den Bergh; after his death, she founded the
Museum Mayer van den Bergh in
Antwerp to house his collection.
Three scenes of the legend of the Miraculous Sacrament in stained glass windows in the
Cathédrale Saints-Michel-et-Gudule of Brussels by Jean-Baptiste Capronnier (c. 1870). The contributions of Capronnier (1814–1891) helped lead to a revival in glass painting.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
... that in the 1916 Declaration of Sainte-Adresse Britain, France and Russia committed to securing the political and economic independence of Belgium after the First World War?
... that to attend the 1915
Women at the Hague Congress, Eugénie Hamer and the Belgian delegates drove, were frisked, walked two hours, and took a train?
1945: birth of
Jean-Pierre Van Rossem, Stock market guru, economist, econometrician, author, philosopher, Public figure, politician and former member of the Belgian parliament
Image 33Southern 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)