Kingdoms of Europe - Southern Netherlands / Belgium

Modern Belgium within the Low Countries occupies a block of territory between the Netherlands to the north and France to the south, with Germany to the east and Luxembourg at its south-east corner. Belgium is one of the six founding countries of the European Union.

The country's capital, Brussels, hosts the official seats of the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the European Council, as well as one of two seats of the European Parliament (the other being Strasbourg). Belgium is also a founding member of the Eurozone, Nato, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), and the WTO, and is part of the trilateral Benelux Union and the Schengen Area.

The country has a long and rather complicated history which goes farther back than may be imagined. In recent years researchers have concluded that all Europeans are descended (in part) from an early founder population of humans of the Aurignacian culture who lived in the area of Belgium around 35,000 BC (see feature link). By the Iron Age it was the tribes of the Belgae which occupied the area, along with some fringe Germanic tribes in the early days of their outward expansion from Scandinavia and the southern Baltic coast in the first couple of centuries BC.

Towards the end of the Roman empire, its province of Belgica fell under the control of the Salian Franks, with Clovis forming the Merovingian kingdom in AD 481 which included Belgium's territory. When the subsequent Carolingian empire broke up, central and eastern Belgian lands were largely incorporated into Lotharingia, which gradually fragmented to become the duchy of Lorraine. The western section of Belgium was formed of the semi-independent county of Flanders which was heavily influenced by West Francia. East Francia was in charge of the region from 843, which evolved into the Holy Roman empire (largely after 962), although Flanders remained within the French sphere of influence.

With Habsburg control of the empire, Belgian lands were dominated first by the Spanish Habsburgs (from 1555), as the Spanish Netherlands, and then by the Austrian Habsburgs (from 1713) as the Austrian Netherlands. During the depths of France's revolutionary fervour, a brief moment of local independence came under the United Belgian States (1789-1790), with France invading in 1794. From 1814-1830, Belgium formed a section of the new 'United Kingdom of the Netherlands'. Dissatisfied with this, the Belgians split away in 1830, and declared their own kingdom soon afterwards in an event which has been termed the Belgian Revolution.

The roots of Belgium's House of Wettin stretch all the way back to the high Middle Ages. The Treaty of Leipzig in 1485 gave rise to the division of the electorate of Saxony's Wettins into the Ernestine and Albertine lines. The senior Ernestine line itself divided several times, and one of its descendants was Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. He was invited to become the country's first king by the Belgian National Congress. He had been married to Charlotte, daughter of George IV of Britain, but she had died in labour. His sister married the king's younger brother, Edward, duke of Kent, and gave birth to Victoria, queen of Great Britain from 1837 (see more information about Belgium's royal dynasty via the feature link, right).

Thanks to its fragmented history and the strong influences which the north, east, and south received from Dutch, German (Flemish), and French speakers respectively, today's Belgium retains strong cultural divisions. The second half of the twentieth century was marked by rising tensions between the Flemish-speaking and French-speaking populations, fuelled by differences in language and culture and the unequal economic development of Flanders and Wallonia.

In 1962 the linguistic frontier was formalised by law. Despite the reforms, tensions between the Flemish and French-speaking communities continued, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement between 1970 and 1993. There are still many tensions though, and speculation is often rife that the kingdom will be split in two by them (see feature link, right, for details of how a prime minister is selected following federal elections).

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