BELGIUM
G'day folks,
Welcome to a post about Belgium. Belgium, a country in Western Europe, is known for its medieval
old towns, Flemish Renaissance architecture and international
headquarters of the European Union and NATO. The country is divided into
2 distinctive multilingual regions: Dutch-speaking Flanders to the
north and French-speaking Wallonia to the south. The bilingual capital,
Brussels, is home to ornate guildhalls at Grand-Place and an art
nouveau-influenced European Quarter.
Geography
Located
in western Europe, Belgium has about 40 mi of seacoast on the North Sea, at the
Strait of Dover, and is approximately the size of Maryland. The Meuse and the
Schelde, Belgium's principal rivers, are important commercial arteries.
Government
Parliamentary
democracy under a constitutional monarch. Under the 1994 constitution, autonomy
was granted to the Walloon region (Wallonia), the Flemish region (Flanders),
and the bilingual Brussels-Capital region; autonomy was also guaranteed for the
Flemish-, French-, and German-speaking “communities.” The central government
retains responsibility for foreign policy, defense, taxation, and social
security.
History
Belgium
occupies part of the Roman province of Belgica, named after the Belgae, a
people of ancient Gaul. The area was conquered by Julius Caesar in 57–50 B.C. ,
then was overrun by the Franks in the 5th century A.D . It was part of
Charlemagne's empire in the 8th century, then in the next century was absorbed
into Lotharingia and later into the duchy of Lower Lorraine. In the 12th
century, Belgium was partitioned into the duchies of Brabant and Luxembourg,
the bishopric of Liège, and the domain of the count of Hainaut, which included
Flanders. In the 15th century, most of the Low Countries (currently the
Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg) passed to the duchy of Burgundy and were
subsequently inherited by Emperor Charles V.
When the latter abdicated in 1555, the territories
went to his son Philippe II, king of Spain. While the northern part, now the
Netherlands, gained its independence in the following decades, the southern
part remained under Spanish control until 1713, when it was transferred to
Austria. During the wars that followed the French Revolution, Belgium was
occupied and later annexed to France. But with the downfall of Napoléon, the
Congress of Vienna in 1815 reunited the Low Countries under the rule of the
king of Holland. In 1830, Belgium rebelled against Dutch rule and declared
independence, which was approved by Europe at the London Conference of
1830–1831.
Germany's
invasion of Belgium in 1914 set off World War I. The Treaty of Versailles
(1919) gave the areas of Eupen, Malmédy, and Moresnet to Belgium. Leopold III
succeeded Albert, king during World War I, in 1934. In World War II, Belgium
was overwhelmed by Nazi Germany, and Leopold III was held prisoner. When he
returned at the government’s invitation in 1950 after a narrowly favorable
referendum, riots broke out in several cities. He abdicated on July 16, 1951,
and his son, Baudouin, became king.
Because of growing opposition to Belgian
rule in its African colonies, Belgium granted independence to the Congo (now
Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1960 and to Ruanda-Urundi (now the nations
of Rwanda and Burundi) in 1962.
Since
1958, when the European Economic Community was born, Brussels, the country’s
capital, has gradually established itself as the de facto capital of what has
now become the European Union (EU), a role that became official in Dec. 2000
when the European Council of heads of government decided to hold all its
regular meetings in Brussels. As a result, the city has become home not only to
nearly 20,000 European civil servants, but to an even more numerous community
of lobbyists, lawyers, and other professionals drawn to the EU’s main decision
center.
Growing
divisions between Flemings and Walloons, and devolution along linguistic lines,
culminated in the revised constitution of 1994, which turned Belgium into a
federal state with significant autonomy for its three regions and its three
language “communities.”
Clancy's comment: I have not been there for many years, but would like to return to take millions of photographs.
I'm ....
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