The
Kingdom of Belgium is a
country in
northwest
Europe.
It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as
well as those of other major international organizations, including
NATO
. Belgium covers an area of and has a
population of about 10.7 million.
Straddling the cultural boundary between
Germanic and
Latin
Europe, Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups, the
Flemish and the
French-speaker, mostly
Walloons, plus a small group of
German-speakers.
Belgium's
two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders
in the north, with 59% of the population, and the
French-speaking southern region of
Wallonia
, inhabited
by 31%. The Brussels-Capital Region
, officially bilingual, is a mostly French-speaking
enclave within the Flemish Region and has 10% of the population.
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A small German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the political history and a complex system of government.
The name 'Belgium' is derived from
Gallia Belgica, a
Roman province in the northernmost part of
Gaul that was inhabited by the
Belgae, a mix of
Celtic and
Germanic peoples.
Historically, Belgium,
the
Netherlands
and Luxembourg
were known as the Low
Countries, which used to cover a somewhat larger area than the
current Benelux group of states. From
the end of the
Middle Ages until the
17th century, it was a prosperous centre of commerce and culture.
From the 16th century until the Belgian revolution in 1830, many
battles between European powers were fought in the area of Belgium,
causing it to be dubbed the battleground of Europe
—The book reviewer, Haß, attributes the expression in English to James Howell in 1640. Howell's original phrase "the cockpit of Christendom" became modified afterwards, as shown by:
—and as such coined for Belgium:
(See also The Nuttall Encyclopaedia)—a reputation strengthened by both World Wars. Upon its independence, Belgium eagerly participated in the Industrial Revolution and, at the end of the nineteenth century, possessed several colonies in Africa. The second half of the 20th century was marked by the rise of communal conflicts between the Flemings and the Francophones fuelled by cultural differences on the one hand and an asymmetrical economic evolution of Flanders and Wallonia on the other hand. These still-active conflicts have caused far-reaching reforms of the formerly unitary Belgian state into a federal state.
History
In the 1st century BC, the
Romans,
after defeating the local tribes, created the province of Gallia
Belgica. A
gradual immigration by
Germanic
Frankish tribes during the 5th
century, brought the area under the rule of the
Merovingian kings. A gradual shift of power
during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into
the
Carolingian Empire. The
Treaty of Verdun in 843 divided the
region into
Middle and
Western Francia and therefore into a set of
more or less independent
fiefdoms which
during the
Middle Ages were
vassals either of the
King
of France or of the
Holy Roman
Emperor.
Many of these fiefdoms were united in the
Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th
and 15th centuries.
Emperor Charles V extended the
personal union of the Seventeen Provinces in the 1540s, making
it far more than a personal union by the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 and
increased his influence over the Prince-Bishopric
of Liège
.
The
Eighty Years' War (1568–1648)
divided the Low Countries into the northern
United
Provinces (
Belgica Foederata in
Latin, the "Federated Netherlands") and the
Southern Netherlands (
Belgica
Regia, the "Royal Netherlands"). The latter were ruled
successively by the
Spanish and the
Austrian Habsburgs and comprised most
of modern Belgium. This was the theatre of most
Franco-Spanish and
Franco-Austrian wars during
the 17th and 18th centuries. Following the
campaigns of 1794
in the French Revolutionary Wars, the Low Countries—including
territories that were never nominally under Habsburg rule, such as
the Prince-Bishopric of Liège—were annexed by the
French First Republic, ending Austrian
rule in the region. The reunification of the Low Countries as the
United Kingdom of the
Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the
First French Empire in 1815.
The 1830
Belgian Revolution led
to the establishment of an independent,
Catholic and neutral Belgium under a
provisional
government and a
national congress. Since the
installation of
Leopold I as
king in 1831, Belgium has been a
constitutional monarchy and
parliamentary democracy. Although
the franchise was initially restricted,
universal suffrage for men was introduced
in 1893 (with
plural voting until
1919) and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th
century were the
Catholic
Party and the
Liberal
Party, with the
Belgian Labour
Party emerging towards the end of the century.
French was originally the single official
language adopted by the
nobility and the
bourgeoisie. It progressively lost its
overall importance as
Dutch became
recognized as well. This recognition became official in 1898 and in
1967 a Dutch version of the
Constitution was legally
accepted.
The
Berlin Conference of 1885 ceded
control of the Congo Free
State
to King Leopold
II as his private possession. From around 1900 there was
growing international concern for the extreme and savage treatment
of the Congolese population under Leopold II, for whom the Congo
was primarily a source of revenue from ivory and rubber production.
In 1908 this outcry led the Belgian state to assume responsibility
for the government of the colony, henceforth called the
Belgian Congo.
Germany invaded Belgium in 1914 as part of the
Schlieffen Plan and much of the
Western Front fighting of
World War I occurred in western parts of
the country.
Belgium took over the German colonies of Ruanda-Urundi (modern day Rwanda
and Burundi
) during the
war and they were mandated to Belgium in 1924 by the League of Nations. In the aftermath
of the first World War, the
Prussian districts of
Eupen and Malmedy were annexed by Belgium in
1925, thereby causing the presence of a German-speaking minority.
The country was again invaded by Germany in 1940 during the
Blitzkrieg offensive and occupied until
its
liberation in 1945 by
the
Allies. The
Belgian Congo gained independence in 1960
during the
Congo Crisis;
Ruanda-Urundi followed two years later.
After
World War II, Belgium joined NATO as a
founding member and formed the Benelux group
of nations with the
Netherlands and Luxembourg. Belgium became one of the six founding
members of the
European Coal and Steel
Community in 1951 and of the
European Atomic Energy
Community and
European
Economic Community, established in 1957.
The latter is now the
European Union, for which Belgium
hosts major administrations and institutions, including the
European
Commission
, the Council of the European Union
and the extraordinary and committee sessions of the European
Parliament
.
Government and politics
Belgium is a
constitutional,
popular monarchy and a
parliamentary democracy.
The federal
bicameral parliament is
composed of a
Senate and a
Chamber of
Representatives. The former is made up of 40 directly elected
politicians and 21 representatives appointed by the
3 community
parliaments, 10
coopted senators and the
children of the king, as
senators by Right who in
practice do not cast their vote. The
Chamber's 150 representatives are
elected under a
proportional
voting system from 11
electoral districts. Belgium is
one of the few countries that has
compulsory voting and thus holds one of
the highest rates of
voter turnout in
the world.
The
King (currently
Albert II) is the
head of state, though with limited
prerogatives. He appoints ministers,
including a
Prime Minister, that have
the confidence of the
Chamber of
Representatives to form the
federal government. The numbers of Dutch-
and French-speaking ministers are equal as prescribed by the
Constitution.
Or both:
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The judicial system is based on civil law and originates from the Napoleonic code. The Court of Cassation is the court of last resort, with the Court of Appeal one level below.
Belgium's political institutions are complex; most political power
is organized around the need to represent the main cultural
communities. Since around 1970, the significant national Belgian
political parties have split into
distinct components that mainly represent the political and
linguistic interests of these communities. The major parties in
each community, though close to the
political
centre, belong to three main groups: the
right-wing Liberals, the
socially conservative Christian Democrats and the
Socialists forming the
left-wing. Further notable parties came
into being well after the middle of last century, mainly around
linguistic,
nationalist, or
environmental themes and recently
smaller ones of
some
specific liberal nature.
A string of Christian Democrat coalition governments from 1958 was
broken in
1999 after
the first
dioxin crisis, a major food
contamination scandal. A 'rainbow coalition' emerged from six
parties: the Flemish and the French-speaking Liberals, Social
Democrats, Greens. Later, a 'purple coalition' of Liberals and
Social Democrats formed after the Greens lost most of their seats
in the
2003 election.
The government led by
Prime Minister
Guy Verhofstadt from 1999 to 2007
achieved a balanced budget, some tax reforms, a labour-market
reform, scheduled
nuclear
phase-out and instigated legislation allowing more stringent
war crime and more lenient
soft drug usage prosecution. Restrictions
on withholding
euthanasia were
reduced and
same-sex
marriage legalized. The government promoted active diplomacy in
Africa and opposed the invasion of Iraq. Verhofstadt's coalition
fared badly in the
June
2007 elections. For more than a year, the country has
experienced a
political crisis. This
crisis was such that many observers speculated on a possible
partition of Belgium. From the
21 December 2007 until 20 March 2008 the temporary
Verhofstadt III Government was in
office. This coalition of the
Flemish and
Francophone Christian Democrats,
the
Flemish and
Francophone Liberals together
with the
Francophone Social
Democrats was an interim government until 20 March 2008. On
that day a
new government, led
by
Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme, the actual winner of the federal
elections of June 2007, was sworn in by the king. On 15 July 2008
Leterme announced the resignation of the cabinet to the king, as no
progress in
constitutional
reforms had been made.In December 2008 he once more offered his
resignation to the King after a
crisis
surrounding the sale of
Fortis to
BNP Paribas. At this juncture, his
resignation was accepted and
Flemish Christian
Democrat Herman Van Rompuy was
sworn in as Prime Minister on December 30, 2008.
After Herman Van Rompuy was designated the first permanent
President of the European
Council on 19 November 2009, he offered the resignation of his
government to King Albert II on 25 November 2009. A few hours
later, the new government under Prime Minister
Yves Leterme was sworn in.
In its
2007 Worldwide Press Freedom
Index, Reporters Without
Borders ranked Belgium (along with Finland
and Sweden
) 5th out of
169 countries.
Communities and regions
[[File:Communities of Belgium.svg|thumb|Communities:
Flemish
& French Community / bilingual language area
]]
Regions:
Following a usage which can be traced back to the Burgundian and
Habsburgian courts, in the 19th century it was necessary to speak
French to belong to the governing upper class, and those who could
only speak
Dutch were
effectively second-class citizens. Late that century, and
continuing into the 20th century,
Flemish movements evolved to counter this
situation. While the Walloons and
most Brusselers adopted French
as their first language, the Flemings refused to do so and
succeeded progressively in imposing Dutch as Flanders'
official language. Following
World War II, Belgian politics became increasingly dominated by the
autonomy of its two main language communities. Intercommunal
tensions rose and the constitution was amended in order to minimise
the conflict potentials.
Based on the four language areas defined in 1962–63 (the Dutch,
bilingual, French and, German language areas), consecutive
revisions of
the country's constitution in 1970,
1980, 1988 and 1993 established a unique federal state with
segregated political power into three levelsFootnote: Each
municipality of the Kingdom is part of one of the four
language
areas , occasionally called linguistic regions . See the three
legal versions of the Constitution:
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English translation, not recently updated and without legal value:
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:
- The federal
government, based in Brussels.
- The three language communities:
- The three regions:
The constitutional language areas determine the official languages
in their municipalities, as well as the geographical limits of the
empowered institutions for specific matters. Although this would
allow for seven parliaments and governments, when the Communities
and Regions were created in 1980, Flemish politicians decided to
merge both. Thus the Flemings just have one single institutional
body of parliament and government is empowered for all except
federal and specific municipal matters. The overlapping boundaries
of the Regions and Communities have created two notable
peculiarities: the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region (which
came into existence nearly a decade after the other regions) is
included in both the Flemish and French Communities, and the
territory of the German-speaking Community lies wholly within the
Walloon Region. Conflicts between the bodies are resolved by the
Constitutional Court of
Belgium. The structure is intended as a compromise to allow
different cultures to live together peacefully.
The Federal State's authority includes justice, defence, federal
police, social security, nuclear energy, monetary policy and public
debt, and other aspects of public finances. State-owned companies
include the
Belgian Post Group
and
Belgian
Railways. The Federal Government is responsible for the
obligations of Belgium and its federalized institutions towards the
European Union and NATO. It controls substantial parts of public
health, home affairs and foreign affairs. The budget—without the
debt—controlled by the federal government amounts to about 50% of
the national fiscal income. The federal government employs ca. 12%
of the civil servants.
Communities exercise their authority only within linguistically
determined geographical boundaries, originally oriented towards the
individuals of a Community's language: culture (including
audiovisual media), education and the use of the relevant language.
Extensions to personal matters less directly connected with
language comprise health policy (curative and preventive medicine)
and assistance to individuals (protection of youth, social welfare,
aid to families, immigrant assistance services, etc.).
Regions have authority in fields that can be broadly associated
with their territory. These include economy, employment,
agriculture, water policy, housing, public works, energy,
transport, the environment, town and country planning, nature
conservation, credit and foreign trade. They supervise the
provinces, municipalities and intercommunal utility
companies.
In several fields, the different levels each have their own say on
specifics. With education, for instance, the autonomy of the
Communities neither includes decisions about the compulsory aspect
nor allows for setting minimum requirements for awarding
qualifications, which remain federal matters. Each level of
government can be involved in scientific research and international
relations associated with its powers. The treaty-making power of
the Region's and Communities' Governments is the broadest of all
the Federating units of all the Federations all over the
world.
Geography, climate and environment
Belgium
shares borders with France
( ),
Germany
( ), Luxembourg ( ) and the Netherlands
( ). Its total area, including surface water
area, is 33,990 square kilometers; land area alone is
30,528 km
2.
Belgium has three main geographical regions:
the coastal plain in the north-west and the central plateau both
belong to the Anglo-Belgian Basin; the Ardennes
uplands in the south-east are part of the Hercynian orogenic belt.
The
Paris Basin reaches a small
fourth area at Belgium's southernmost tip, Belgian Lorraine
.
The coastal plain consists mainly of sand dunes and
polders. Further inland lies a smooth, slowly rising
landscape irrigated by numerous waterways, with fertile valleys and
the northeastern sandy plain of the
Campine
(
Kempen).
The thickly forested hills and plateaus of
the Ardennes are more rugged and rocky with caves and small
gorges, and offer much of Belgium's wildlife
but little agricultural capability. Extending westward
into France, this area is eastwardly connected to the Eifel in Germany by the High Fens
plateau, on which the Signal de Botrange
forms the country's highest point at .
Ardennes
The climate is
maritime temperate,
with significant precipitation in all seasons (
Köppen climate
classification:
Cfb). The average temperature is
lowest in January at and highest in July at . The average
precipitation per month varies between in February or April, to in
July. Averages for the years 2000 to 2006 show daily temperature
minimums of and maximums of and monthly rainfall of ; these are
about 1 °
C and nearly 10 millimetres above
last century's normal values, respectively.
Phytogeographically, Belgium is
shared between the Atlantic European and Central European provinces
of the
Circumboreal Region
within the
Boreal Kingdom. According
to the
WWF, the territory
of Belgium belongs to the
ecoregion of
Atlantic mixed forests.
Because of its high
population
density, its location in the centre of Western Europe and
inadequate political effort, Belgium faces serious
environmental problems. A 2003 report
suggested Belgian natural waters(rivers and groundwater) to have
the lowest water quality of the 122 countries studied.In the 2006
pilot
Environmental
Performance Index, Belgium scored 75.9% for overall
environmental performance and was ranked lowest of the EU member
countries, though it was only 39th of 133 countries.
Economy
Belgium's strongly globalized economy and its
transportation infrastructure are
integrated with the rest of Europe. Its location at the heart of a
highly industrialized region helps made it 2007 the world's 15th
largest trading nation. The economy is characterized by a highly
productive work force, high
GNP and high exports
per capita. Belgium's main imports are
food products, machinery, rough diamonds, petroleum and petroleum
products, chemicals, clothing and accessories, and textiles. Its
main exports are automobiles, food products, iron and steel,
finished diamonds, textiles, plastics, petroleum products and
nonferrous metals. The Belgian economy is heavily service-oriented
and shows a dual nature: a dynamic Flemish economy and a Walloon
economy that lags behind. One of the founding members of the
European Union, Belgium strongly supports an
open economy and the extension of the powers of
EU institutions to integrate member economies. Since 1922, Belgium
and Luxembourg have been a single trade market within a
customs and
currency
union: the
Belgium-Luxembourg Economic
Union.
Belgium was the first continental European country to undergo the
Industrial Revolution, in the
early 1800s.
Liège
and Charleroi
rapidly developed mining and steelmaking, which
flourished until the mid-20th century in the Sambre
–Meuse
valley, the sillon
industriel and made Belgium one of the top three most
industrialized nations in the world from 1830 to 1910.
However, by the 1840s the textile industry of Flanders was in
severe crisis and the region experienced famine from 1846–50.
After
World War II, Ghent
and Antwerp
experienced a rapid expansion of the chemical and
petroleum industries. The 1973 and 1979 oil
crises sent the economy into a recession; it was particularly
prolonged in Wallonia, where the steel
industry had become less competitive and experienced serious
decline. In the 1980s and 90s, the economic centre of the
country continued to shift northwards and is now concentrated in
the populous
Flemish Diamond
area.
By the end of the 1980s, Belgian
macroeconomic policies had resulted
in a cumulative government debt of about 120% of
GDP. As of 2006, the budget was balanced and public debt
was equal to 90.30% of GDP. In 2005 and 2006, real GDP growth rates
of 1.5% and 3.0%, respectively, were slightly above the average for
the Euro area. Unemployment rates of 8.4% in 2005 and 8.2% in 2006
were close to the area average.
From 1832 until 2002, Belgium's currency was the
Belgian franc. Belgium switched to the
euro in 2002, with the first sets of euro coins
being minted in 1999. While the standard
Belgian euro coins designated for
circulation show the portrait of King Albert II, this does not
happen for
commemorative
coins, where designs are freely chosen.
Demographics
Main areas and places in Belgium
In the beginning of 2007 nearly 92% of the Belgian population were
Belgian citizens, and around 6% were citizens from other
European Union member countries.
The prevalent foreign
nationals were Italian (171,918),
French (125,061), Dutch (116,970), Moroccan
(80,579), Spanish
(42,765), Turkish (39,419) and
German (37,621).
Urbanization
Almost all of the Belgian population is urban—97% in 2004.
The
population density of Belgium is 342 per square kilometre (886 per
square mile)—one of the highest in Europe, after that of the
Netherlands and some microstates such as Monaco
.
The most
densely inhabited area is the Flemish
Diamond, outlined by the Antwerp–Leuven
–Brussels
–Ghent
agglomerations. The Ardennes have the lowest density.
As of
2006, the Flemish Region had a population of about 6,078,600, with
Antwerp (457,749), Ghent (230,951) and Bruges
(117,251)
its most populous cities; Wallonia had 3,413,978, with Charleroi (201,373), Liège
(185,574)
and Namur
(107,178)
its most populous. Brussels houses 1,018,804 in the Capital
Region's
19
municipalities, two of which have over 100,000 residents.
Languages
Official languages:
Belgium has three official languages, which are, in order from the
largest speaker population to the smallest,
Dutch,
French
and
German. A number of
non-official, minority languages are spoken as well.
As no
census exists, there is no official
statistical data regarding the distribution or usage of Belgium's
three official languages or their
dialects.
However, various criteria, including the language(s) of parents, of
education, or the second-language status of foreign born, may
provide suggested figures. An estimated 59% of the Belgian
population speaks
Dutch (often
colloquially referred to as "
Flemish") and
French is spoken by 40%.
Total
Dutch speakers are 6.23 million, concentrated in the northern
Flanders region, while French speakers comprise 3.32 million
in Wallonia
and an estimated 0.87 million or 85% of the
officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The German-speaking
Community is made up of 73,000 people in the east of the
Walloon
Region; around 10,000 German and 60,000 Belgian nationals
are speakers of German.
Roughly 23,000 more German speakers live in municipalities near the
official Community.
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Both the
Dutch spoken in Belgium and the Belgian French have minor differences in
vocabulary and semantic nuances from the varieties spoken
respectively in the Netherlands and France. Many
Flemish people still speak
dialects of Dutch in their local environment.
Walloon, once the main regional language of Wallonia, is now only understood and spoken occasionally,
mostly by elderly people. Wallonia's
dialects, along with those of
Picard, are not used in public life.
Education
Education is compulsory from six to eighteen for Belgians, but many
continue to study until about 23 years of age. Among
OECD countries in 2002, Belgium had the third-highest
proportion of 18–21-year-olds enrolled in
postsecondary education, at 42%.
Though an estimated 98% of the adult population is
literate, concern is rising over
functional illiteracy.The
Programme for
International Student Assessment, coordinated by the
OECD, currently ranks Belgium's education as the 19th
best in the world, being significantly higher than the OECD
average.
Mirroring the dual structure of the 19th-century Belgian political
landscape, characterized by the
Liberal and the
Catholic parties, the educational
system is segregated within a secular and a religious segment. The
secular branch of schooling is controlled by the Communities, the
provinces, or the municipalities, while religious, mainly
Catholic branch education, is organized by
religious authorities, although
subsidized
and supervised by the Communities.
Religion
Since the country's independence,
Roman Catholicism, counterbalanced by
strong
freethought movements, has had an
important role in Belgium's politics. However Belgium is largely a
secular country as the
laicist constitution provides for freedom of
religion, and the government generally respects this right in
practice. During the reign of
Albert
I and
Baudouin, the
monarchy has had a reputation of deeply rooted Catholicism.
Symbolically and materially, the Roman Catholic Church remains in a
favourable position. Belgium's concept of 'recognized religions'
set a path for
Islam to follow to acquire the
treatment of
Jewish and
Protestant religions. While other minority
religions, such as
Hinduism, do not yet
have such status,
Buddhism took the first
steps toward legal recognition in 2007.
Alternative urls: α, β, pdf 1.1 MB: γ According to the 2001 Survey and Study of Religion, about 47% of the population identify themselves as belonging to the Catholic Church, while Islam is the second-largest religion at 3.5%. A 2006 inquiry in Flanders, considered to be a more religious region than Wallonia, showed that 55% considered themselves religious and that 36% believed that God created the world.
According to the most recent
Eurobarometer
Poll 2005, 43% of Belgian citizens responded that "they believe
there is a God", whereas 29% answered that "they believe there is
some sort of spirit or life force" and 27% that "they do not
believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force".
It is estimated that between 3% to 4% of the Belgian population is
Muslim (98%
Sunni) (350 000 to 400 000 people).
The majority of
Belgian Muslims live in the major cities, such as Antwerp, Brussels and Charleroi. The largest group of immigrants in Belgium
are Moroccans, with 264,974 people. The Turks are the third-largest
group, and the second-largest Muslim ethnic group, numbering
159,336. There is also a small
Hindu
population. Moreover about 10,000
Sikhs are also present in Belgium.
Science and technology
Contributions to the development of science and technology have
appeared throughout the country's history. The sixteenth century
Early Modern flourishing of Western
Europe included
cartographer Gerardus Mercator,
anatomist Andreas
Vesalius,
herbalist Rembert Dodoens and
mathematician Simon
Stevin among the most influential scientists.
The quickly developed and dense Belgian railway system caused major
companies like
La Brugeoise
et Nivelles (now the BN division of
Bombardier Transportation) to
develop specific technologies and the economically important
very deep coal mining
in the course of the
First
Industrial Revolution has required highly reputed specialized
studies for
mine engineers.
The end of the nineteenth century and the twentieth saw important
Belgian advances in
applied and
pure science. The chemist
Ernest Solvay and the engineer
Zenobe Gramme (École Industrielle de Liège)
gave their names to the
Solvay
process and the
Gramme dynamo,
respectively, in the 1860s.
Bakelite was
developed in 1907–1909 by
Leo
Baekeland.
Georges
Lemaître (
Catholic
University of Leuven) is credited with proposing the
Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe in
1927.
Three Nobel Prizes in Physiology
or Medicine were awarded to Belgians: Jules Bordet (Université
Libre de Bruxelles
) in 1919, Corneille
Heymans (University of Ghent
) in 1938 and Albert
Claude (Université Libre de Bruxelles) together with Christian De Duve (Université Catholique
de Louvain) in 1974. Ilya
Prigogine (Université Libre de Bruxelles) was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Chemistry in
1977.
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(*) Free abstract for pay-per-view article by
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Culture
Cultural life is nowadays concentrated within each language
community and a variety of barriers have made a shared cultural
sphere less pronounced.
Since the 1970s, there are no bilingual
universities in the country except the Royal
Military Academy
, no common media and no single large cultural or
scientific organization in which both main communities are
represented. The forces that once held the Belgians
together—Roman Catholicism and economic and political opposition to
the Dutch—are no longer strong.Despite its
political and linguistic divisions that
have been varied over the centuries, the region corresponding to
today's Belgium has seen the flourishing of major artistic
movements that have had tremendous influence on European art and
culture.
Fine arts
Contributions to painting and architecture have been especially
rich. The
Mosan art, the
Early Netherlandish, the
Flemish
Renaissance and
Baroque
painting and major examples of
Romanesque,
Gothic,
Renaissance and
Baroque architecture are milestones in
the history of art. While the 15th century's art in the Low
Countries is dominated by the religious paintings of
Jan van Eyck and
Rogier van der Weyden, the 16th
century is characterized by a broader panel of styles such as
Peter Breughel's landscape
paintings and
Lambert Lombard's
representation of the antique. Though the Baroque style of
Peter Paul Rubens and
Anthony van Dyck flourished in the early
17th century in the Southern Netherlands, it gradually declined
thereafter.During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries many
original
romantic,
expressionist and
surrealist Belgian painters emerged, including
James Ensor,
Constant Permeke,
Paul Delvaux and
René Magritte. The avant-garde
CoBrA movement appeared in the
1950s, while the sculptor
Panamarenko
remains a remarkable figure in contemporary art. The
multidisciplinary artist
Jan Fabre and the
painter
Luc Tuymans are other
internationally renowned figures on the contemporary art scene.
Belgian contributions to architecture also continued into the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the work of
Victor Horta and
Henry van de Velde, who were major
initiators of the
Art Nouveau
style.
The
vocal music of the
Franco-Flemish School developed in the
southern part of the Low Countries and was an important
contribution to Renaissance culture. The nineteenth and twentieth
centuries witnessed the appearance of major violinists, such as
Henri Vieuxtemps,
Eugène Ysaÿe and
Arthur Grumiaux, while
Adolphe Sax invented the
saxophone in 1846.
The composer César Franck was born in Liège in 1822. Contemporary music in Belgium is
also of repute. Jazz musician
Toots
Thielemans and singer
Jacques Brel
have achieved global fame. In rock/pop music,
Telex,
Front 242,
K's Choice,
Hooverphonic,
Zap Mama,
Soulwax and
dEUS
are well known.Two comprehensive discussions of rock and pop music
in Belgium since the fifties:
*
*
Belgium has produced several well-known
authors, including the poet
Emile Verhaeren and novelists
Hendrik Conscience,
Georges Simenon,
Suzanne Lilar and
Amélie Nothomb. The poet and playwright
Maurice Maeterlinck won the
Nobel Prize in literature
in 1911.
The Adventures of
Tintin by
Hergé is the best
known of
Franco-Belgian
comics, but many other major authors, including
Peyo (
The Smurfs),
André Franquin,
Edgar P. Jacobs and
Willy Vandersteen brought the Belgian
cartoon strip industry on a par with the U.S.A. and Japan.
Belgian cinema, has brought a number of mainly Flemish novels to
life on-screen. Other Belgian directors include
André Delvaux,
Stijn Coninx,
Luc
and
Jean-Pierre Dardenne;
well-known actors include
Jan Decleir
and
Marie Gillain; and successful
films include
Man Bites
Dog and
The Alzheimer
Affair. In the 1980s, Antwerp's
Royal Academy
of Fine Arts produced important fashion trendsetters, known as
the
Antwerp Six.
Folklore
Folklore plays a major role in Belgium's cultural life: the country
has a comparatively high number of
processions,
cavalcades,
parades, 'ommegangs' and 'ducasses',
'
kermesse' and other local
festivals, nearly always with an originally religious or
mythological background.
The
Carnival of Binche with its
famous Gilles and the 'Processional Giants
and Dragons' of Ath
, Brussels, Dendermonde
, Mechelen
and Mons
are
recognized by UNESCO
as Masterpieces
of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Other
examples are the Carnival of Aalst
; the still
very religious processions of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Virga Jesse
Basilica
in Hasselt
and Hanswijk in Mechelen; the August
15 festival in Liège; and the Walloon festival in Namur. Originated in 1832 and revived in the
1960s, the
Gentse Feesten have become
a modern tradition. A major non-official holiday is the
Saint Nicholas Day, a festivity for
children and, in Liège, for students.
Sports
Association football and
cycling are the most popular sports in
Belgium. With five victories in the
Tour
de France and numerous other cycling records, Belgian
Eddy Merckx ranks #1 as the greatest cyclist of
all time. His hour speed record (set in 1972) stood for twelve
years.
Jean-Marie Pfaff, a former
Belgian
goalkeeper, is considered one of
the greatest in the history of football. Belgium is currently
bidding with the Netherlands to host the
2018 World Cup. Both
countries previously hosted the
UEFA European Football
Championship in
2000. Belgium
also hosted the European Football Championships in
1972.
Kim Clijsters and
Justine Henin both were
Player of the Year in the
Women's Tennis Association as
they were ranked the number one female tennis player.
The Spa-Francorchamps
motor-racing circuit hosts the Formula One World
Championship Belgian Grand Prix
. The Belgian driver, Jacky Ickx, won eight Grands Prix and six
24 Hours of
Le Mans
and finished twice as runner-up in the Formula One
World Championship. Belgium also has a strong reputation in
motocross; world champions include
Roger De Coster,
Joël Robert,
Georges Jobé,
Eric
Geboers,
Joël Smets and
Stefan Everts.
Sporting
events annually held in Belgium include the Memorial Van Damme athletics competition,
the Belgian
Grand Prix Formula One, and a number of classic cycle races such as the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
The
1920 Summer Olympics were
held in Antwerp, Belgium.
Cuisine
Many highly ranked Belgian restaurants can be found in the most
influential gastronomic guides, such as the
Michelin Guide. Belgium is famous for
waffles and
french fries. Contrary to their name, french
fries also originated in Belgium. The name "french fries" actually
refers to the description of the manner in which the potato is cut.
To "french" means to cut into slivers. The national dishes are
"
steak and fries with
salad", and "
mussels with
fries".
Brands of Belgian
chocolate and
pralines, like
Callebaut,
Côte d'Or,
Neuhaus,
Leonidas,
Guylian,
Galler and
Godiva, are world renowned and widely
sold.
Belgium produces over
500 varieties of
beer.
The Trappist
beer of the Abbey of Westvleteren
has consistently been rated the world's best
beer.The biggest brewer in
the world by volume is Anheuser-Busch InBev, based in Leuven.
See also
References
Footnotes
General online sources
- (mentioning other original sources)
- Retrieved on 2007-06-07.
- —Reflections on nations and nation-state developments regarding
Belgium
- —Historical overview over the political history of Belgium
Bibliography
External links
- See also: section References,
subsection General online
sources
- Government
- General information
- Tourism
- Other