Portal:Belgium

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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of 30,528 km² (11,787 sq mi) and has a population of more than 11.5 million, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe, with a density of 376/km² (970/sq mi). Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven.

Belgium is a sovereign state and a federal constitutional 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 autonomous regions: 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, numbering around one percent, exists in the East Cantons. The Brussels-Capital Region is officially bilingual in French and Dutch, although French is the dominant language. 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 near several major rivers 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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The siege of Saïo or battle of Saïo took place during the East African Campaign of World War II. Belgo-Congolese troops, British Commonwealth forces and local resistance fighters besieged the fort at the market town of Saïo in south-western Ethiopia in 1941. The siege lasted for several months, culminating in an Allied attack on the Italian garrison thereby forcing it to surrender.

In the first months of 1941, British and Belgian colonial forces attacked Italian East Africa from the colony of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. By the end of March, they had seized the town of Gambela and begun containing retreating Italian forces, which were massing on a plateau in the mountain town of Saïo (presently Dembidolo) under the command of General Carlo De Simone and later General Pietro Gazzera. The British forces withdrew the following month and the Belgians advanced down the road to Saïo. The Italians repelled them and they were forced to hold their positions along a nearby brook. Almost no fighting took place in May as heavy rain bogged down the Belgians and turned their supply line from Sudan into mud, creating a food shortage. In early June, reinforcements arrived via river and the Belgians besieged the Italian supply depot at Mogi. Aggressive patrols, combined with the actions of the Ethiopian resistance and raids from the South African Air Force put increased pressure upon the Italian garrison. (Full article...)

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More Did you know

Martyrdom of Saints Crispin and Crispinian

...that for over a hundred years, the subject of the painting now identified as the Martyrdom of Saints Crispin and Crispinian (close-up pictured) by Aert van den Bossche was a mystery?
...that the Compromise of Nobles was drafted in the Sablon in Brussels, which would later be the site of the execution of 18 of its signatories?
...that Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave creates life-size, painted paper sculptures of wedding gowns, shoes, needlework lace, and strings of pearls?

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Image 1
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 2
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 3
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 4
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 5
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.
Image 6
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 7
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 8
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 9
Saint Nicholas' Church, Ghent
Photochrom: Detroit Publishing Co.
Restoration: Michel Vuijlsteke
A ca. 1890–1900 photochrom print of Saint Nicholas' Church in Ghent, Belgium, one of the city's oldest and most prominent landmarks, dating back to the 13th century. The church's central tower served as an observation tower and carried the town bells until the neighboring belfry of Ghent was built.
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
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 12
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 13
Portrait of Henriette Mayer van den Bergh
Painting: Jozef Van Lerius
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.
Image 14
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 15
Stained glass windows by Jean-Baptiste Capronnier
Windows: Jean-Baptiste Capronnier; photograph: Joaquim Alves Gaspar
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.

Did you know (auto-generated)

... that the heart of Pierre David was found in a Belgian fountain in August 2020?
... that André Delvaux was a magic-realist filmmaker who was made a baron by the king of Belgium?
... that after closing his military academy at Chelsea, Lewis Lochée fought for the United Belgian States against the Austrian Netherlands and then wrote a history of the Belgian Revolution?
... 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?
... 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 Belgian academic and judge Étienne Cerexhe was a co-founder of the Faculty of Law at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso?

Anniversaries for May 18

1897: birth of Edgard Colle, chess player, known for the Colle System opening
1949: birth of Georges Leekens, soccer player and coach, coach of the Belgium national football team between 1997 and 1999

More May anniversaries

General images -

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

Image 1Massacre of the French in Bruges by Flemish militia during the Franco-Flemish War (from History of Belgium)
Image 2Belgian soldier taking cover by the corpses of dead hostages, November 1964 in Stanleyville during Operation Dragon Rouge (from History of Belgium)
Image 3German soldiers examine an abandoned Belgian T13 Tank, 1940 (from History of Belgium)
Image 4Map showing the area of West Germany occupied by Belgian forces after the Second World War, known as FBA-BSD (from History of Belgium)
Image 5Painting of steel production in Ougrée by the celebrated 19th century artist Constantin Meunier (from History of Belgium)
Image 6Belgian F-16 conducts a combat patrol over Afghanistan, 2008 (from History of Belgium)
Image 7A Belgian machine gunner at the front lines in 1918, firing a Chauchat machine gun. (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 9Map 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 10Flint knives discovered in Belgian caves (from History of Belgium)
Image 11Belgian-Congolese Force Publique soldiers, 1943 (from History of Belgium)
Image 12Paul-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 13Surviving Roman city walls in Tongeren, the former city of Atuatuca Tongrorum (from History of Belgium)
Image 14The Italian Belgian Elio Di Rupo, the Prime Minister of Belgium from 2011 until 2014 (from History of Belgium)
Image 15The Sack of Antwerp in 1576, in which 17,000 people died. (from History of Belgium)
Image 16Site of the massacre of Belgian UN personnel in Kigali, Rwanda. (from History of Belgium)
Image 17A historic street in Belgium (from History of Belgium)
Image 18The Siege of Maastricht (1579) by an anonymous painter (from History of Belgium)
Image 19Episode of the Belgian Revolution of 1830, Egide Charles Gustave Wappers (1834), in the Musée d'Art Ancien, Brussels (from History of Belgium)
Image 20The "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 21The flag of the francophone pro-Nazi Rexist party (from History of Belgium)
Image 22Walloon workers demonstration in Brussels in the winter of 1960 (from History of Belgium)
Image 23The first Belgian-produced steam locomotive, "The Belgian" ("Le Belge") built in 1835 (from History of Belgium)
Image 24A 1906 British Punch cartoon depicting Leopold II as a rubber vine entangling a Congolese man (from History of Belgium)
Image 25Equestrian statue of Leopold II in Brussels (from History of Belgium)
Image 26The flag of Flanders incorporating the Flemish lion, also used by the Flemish Movement. (from History of Belgium)
Image 27Poster for the 1920 Summer Olympics, held at Antwerp (from History of Belgium)
Image 28Saint Servatius, bishop of Tongeren and one of the first known Christian figures in the region. 16th century reliquary. (from History of Belgium)
Image 29Commemorative Medal awarded to Belgian soldiers who had served during the Franco-Prussian War. (from History of Belgium)
Image 30The natural regions of Belgium. (from Geography of Belgium)
Image 31Cartoon of "The Rape of Belgium" showing giant hairy fist with Prussian eagle grasping maiden in flowing robes. (from History of Belgium)
Image 32The Battle of Nieuwpoort (1600) (from History of Belgium)
Image 33French soldiers fight at Fleurus in Belgium during the Revolutionary Wars, 1794 (from History of Belgium)
Image 34The Roman province of Gallia Belgica in around 120 AD (from History of Belgium)
Image 35The Seventeen Provinces, and the See of Liège in green (from History of Belgium)
Image 36Southern 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 37The gallows at Breendonk Concentration Camp, near Mechelen (from History of Belgium)
Image 38The Cinquantenaire/Jubelpark memorial arcade, built in 1905 (from History of Belgium)

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