Communities, regions, and language areas of Belgium

Map indicating the language areas and provinces of Belgium. Provinces are marked by the thinner black lines.
  Dutch-speaking
  
  French-speaking
  German-speaking
  
  Bilingual FR/NL
Community:   Region:
Flemish   Flanders
French and Flemish   Brussels
French   Wallonia
German-speaking   Wallonia

Belgium is a federal state comprising three communities and three regions that are based on four language areas. For each of these subdivision types, the subdivisions together make up the entire country; in other words, the types overlap.

The language areas were established by the Second Gilson Act, which entered into force on 2 August 1963. The division into language areas was included in the Belgian Constitution in 1970.[1] Through constitutional reforms in the 1970s and 1980s, regionalisation of the unitary state led to a three-tiered federation: federal, regional, and community governments were created, a compromise designed to minimize linguistic, cultural, social, and economic tensions.[2]

  1. ^ "Als goede buren– Vlaanderen en de taalwetgeving– Taalgrens en taalgebieden" (in Dutch). Vlaanderen.be. Archived from the original on 11 January 2008. Retrieved 10 July 2007.
  2. ^ "Politics — State structure". Flanders.be. Flemish Government. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 24 May 2007.