Flanders
Vlaanderen (Dutch) | |
|---|---|
| Anthem: De Vlaamse Leeuw ("The Flemish Lion") | |
 Present-day Flanders (dark red) shown within Belgium. Brussels is only part of the Flemish Community, and not of the Flemish Region. | |
| Coordinates: 51°00′N 4°30′E / 51.000°N 4.500°E | |
| Country | Belgium |
| County of Flanders | 862–1795 |
| Community in Belgium | 1970 |
| Region in Belgium | 1980 |
| Largest cities | Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, Leuven |
| Seat | City of Brussels (partly outside the territory) |
| Government | |
| • Executive | Flemish Government |
| • Governing parties (2024-2029) | N-VA, Vooruit, CD&V |
| • Minister-President | Matthias Diependaele (N-VA) |
| • Legislature | Flemish Parliament |
| • Speaker | Liesbeth Homans (N-VA) |
| Area | |
• Total | 13,626 km2 (5,261 sq mi) |
| Population (1 January 2024)[2] | |
• Total | 6,821,770 |
| • Density | 501/km2 (1,300/sq mi) |
| • Official language | Dutch |
| Demonyms | Flemish (adjective), Fleming (person) Vlaams (adjective), Vlaming (person) |
| GDP | |
| • Total | €330.495 billion (2022) |
| Time zone | UTC+01:00 (CET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+02:00 (CEST) |
| ISO 3166 code | BE-VLG |
| Website | Vlaanderen.be |
| The area and population figures are given for the Flemish Region, not the Community. | |
| Person | Fleming (Vlaming) |
|---|---|
| People | Flemings (Vlamingen) |
| Language | Flemish (Vlaams), VGT (Vlaamse Gebarentaal) |
| Country | Flanders (Vlaanderen) |
Flanders (/ˈflɑːndərz/ FLAHN-dərz[a] or /ˈflændərz/ FLAN-dərz;[b] Dutch: Vlaanderen [ˈvlaːndərə(n)] )[c] is the Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, language, politics, and history, and sometimes involving neighbouring countries. The demonym associated with Flanders is Fleming, while the corresponding adjective is Flemish, which can also refer to the collective of Dutch dialects spoken in that area, or more generally the Belgian variant of Standard Dutch.
Most Flemings live within the Flemish Region, which is a federal state within Belgium with its own elected government. However, like Belgium itself, the official capital of Flanders is the City of Brussels,[4] which lies within the Brussels-Capital Region, not the Flemish Region, and the majority of residents there are French speaking. The powers of the Flemish Government in Brussels are limited mainly to Flemish culture and education.[5]
Geographically, Flanders is mainly flat, and incorporates the whole coast of Belgium on the North Sea. It borders the French department of Nord to the south-west near the coast, the Dutch provinces of Zeeland, North Brabant and Limburg to the north and east, and the Walloon provinces of Hainaut, Walloon Brabant and Liège to the south. Despite accounting for only 45% of Belgium's territory, more than half the population lives there – 6,821,770 (or 58%) out of 11,763,650 Belgian inhabitants, as of January 2024. Much of Flanders is agriculturally fertile and densely populated at 501/km2 (1,300/sq mi). The Brussels Region is an officially bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region.[d] Flanders also has exclaves of its own: Voeren in the east is between Wallonia and the Netherlands and Baarle-Hertog in the north consists of 22 exclaves surrounded by the Netherlands. Not including Brussels, there are five present-day Flemish provinces: Antwerp, East Flanders, Flemish Brabant, Limburg and West Flanders. The official language is Dutch.
The area of today's Flanders has figured prominently in European history since the Middle Ages. The original County of Flanders stretched around AD 900 from the Strait of Dover to the Scheldt estuary and expanded from there. This county also still corresponds roughly with the modern-day Belgian provinces of West Flanders and East Flanders, along with neighbouring parts of France and the Netherlands.[e] In this period, cities such as Ghent and Bruges of the historic County of Flanders, and later Antwerp of the Duchy of Brabant made it one of the richest and most urbanised parts of Europe, trading, and weaving the wool of neighbouring lands into cloth for both domestic use and export. As a consequence, a very sophisticated culture developed, with impressive achievements in the arts and architecture, rivaling those of northern Italy.
Belgium was one of the centres of the 19th-century Industrial Revolution, but this occurred mainly in French-speaking Wallonia. In the second half of the 20th century, and due to massive national investments in port infrastructure, Flanders' economy modernised rapidly, and today Flanders and Brussels are much wealthier than Wallonia, being among the wealthiest regions in Europe and the world.[8] In accordance with late 20th century Belgian state reforms, Flanders was made into two political entities: the Flemish Region (Dutch: Vlaams Gewest) and the Flemish Community (Dutch: Vlaamse Gemeenschap). These entities were merged, although geographically the Flemish Community, which has a broader cultural mandate, covers Brussels, whereas the Flemish Region does not.
- ^ "Metadata: Bebouwde oppervlakte en bijbehorende terreinen". Vlaanderen.be. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
- ^ "Structuur van de bevolking | Statbel". statbel.fgov.be.
- ^ "EU regions by GDP, Eurostat". www.ec.europa.eu. Retrieved 18 September 2023.
- ^ "Discover Flanders". Flanders.be. 15 December 2013. Archived from the original on 23 October 2017. Retrieved 22 October 2017.
- ^ "The Powers of the Regions". Retrieved 30 October 2022.
- ^ Janssens, Rudi (2008). Language use in Brussels and the position of Dutch. Some recent findings (PDF). Brussels Studies. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 24 November 2018.
- ^ "Bruxelles est francophone à 92%, selon les déclarations fiscales". Le Soir (in French). 4 December 2017. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
- ^ "Belgium". U.S. Department of State. Archived from the original on 21 January 2017. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
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