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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 30,689 km² (11,849 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 per square kilometre (970/sq mi). 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 home to two main linguistic communities: the Dutch-speaking Flemish Community, which constitutes about 60 percent of the population, and the French-speaking 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. (Full article...)

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Degrelle in 1937

Léon Joseph Marie Ignace Degrelle (French: [dəgʁɛl]; 15 June 1906 – 31 March 1994) was a Belgian Walloon politician and Nazi collaborator. He rose to prominence in Belgium in the 1930s as the leader of the Rexist Party (Rex). During the German occupation of Belgium during World War II, he enlisted in the German army and fought in the Walloon Legion on the Eastern Front. After the collapse of the Nazi regime, Degrelle escaped and went into exile in Francoist Spain, where he remained a prominent figure in neo-Nazi politics.

Degrelle was raised Catholic and during his years at university became involved in politics through journalism. In the early 1930s, he took control of a Catholic publishing house that morphed under his leadership into the Rexist Party. Rex contested the 1936 Belgian general election and won 11 percent of the vote, but slipped into irrelevance by the start of World War II. Degrelle began to collaborate with Nazi Germany as the war began and was detained by Belgian and then French authorities. After the German invasion of Belgium in mid-1940, Degrelle was released and began to change Rex into a mass movement to curry the favor of the Nazis. In 1941, Degrelle organized and himself joined and fought in the Walloon Legion, a unit of the German Army and, after 1943, the Waffen-SS. His performance in 1944 at the Cherkassy pocket and subsequent decorations turned him into a model for foreign collaborators. (Full article...)

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More Did you know

...that paling in 't groen (pictured) is a Flemish dish of eel in a green herb sauce?
...that Leopold II's mistress Caroline Lacroix was so loathed by the Belgian public that on one occasion, her carriage was stoned in Brussels?
...that a Bruges building dating to 1399 now houses a museum dedicated to fries?

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Image 1
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.
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Image 2
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.
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Image 3
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.
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Image 4
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.
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Image 5
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.
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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.
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Image 7
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.
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Image 8
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.
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Image 9
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.
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Image 10
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.
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Image 11
Louis-Marie Autissier
A self-portrait of Louis-Marie Autissier (1772–1830), a French-born Belgian portrait miniature painter. He is considered the founder of the Belgian school of miniature painting in the nineteenth century. Born at Vannes, in Brittany, he joined the French Revolutionary Army at Rennes in 1791. On leaving the army in 1795, Autissier went to Paris and trained his art by studying paintings at the Louvre. In 1796 he settled in Brussels, but continued to divide his time between Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. Although he enjoyed great success in his career, serving as court painter to Louis Napoleon, French King of the Netherlands, and later to Willem I, Autissier died penniless.
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Image 12
Thorntonbank Wind Farm
Photo credit: Hans Hillewaert
Wind turbines belonging to the Thorntonbank Wind Farm located in the North Sea, 28 km (17 mi) off the coast of Belgium. Electricity generation started in early 2009, with an initial capacity of 30 MW, and that number is expected to rise to 300 MW by 2015. A 37 km (23 mi) 150 kV undersea cable connects the wind farm to the shore.
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Image 13
Hélène Dutrieu
Photo credit: Bain News Service
Hélène Dutrieu, shown here in her aeroplane ca. 1911, was the fourth woman in the world (the first from Belgium) to earn a pilot's license and reputedly the first woman to carry passengers and to fly a seaplane. Besides being a pilot, she was a cycling world champion, stunt cyclist, stunt motorcyclist, automobile racer, wartime ambulance driver, and director of a military hospital.
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Image 14
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).
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Image 15
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.
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Did you know (auto-generated)

... that Zofia Poznańska, cipher clerk to the Red Orchestra espionage group, was captured in Belgium by the Abwehr in 1941 and hanged herself in prison in 1942?
... that at the 2010 Belgian Grand Prix, Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton slid off the wet track into a gravel trap, but was able to re-join the circuit and win the race?
... that West Germany won their second UEFA European Championship in three editions when they defeated Belgium in the UEFA Euro 1980 Final?
... that Belgian academic and judge Étienne Cerexhe was a co-founder of the Faculty of Law at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso?
... that Isabelle Kabatu, a Belgian soprano of African origin, recorded the role of Dolly in Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's opera Sly alongside José Carreras in the title role?
... that Belgian waffles were introduced to the United States at the 1964 New York World's Fair?

Anniversaries for May 3

1294: death of John I, Duke of Brabant, father-in-law of Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor
1742: birth of Archduchess Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen, Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands
1809: birth of Laurent-Guillaume de Koninck, palentologist and chemist
1915: In Flanders Fields, the famous poem about World War I (Remembrance Poppies pictured), is written by Canadian John McCrae
1929: birth of Berck, comics author
1938: birth of Louis Tobback, former minister in the Belgian federal government and as of 2006 mayor of Leuven
1986: Sandra Kim wins the Eurovision Song Contest held in Bergen, Norway

More May anniversaries

General images - load new batch

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

Image 1The natural regions of Belgium. (from Geography of Belgium)
Image 2A Belgian machine gunner at the front lines in 1918, firing a Chauchat machine gun. (from History of Belgium)
Image 314th-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 4Equestrian statue of Leopold II in Brussels (from History of Belgium)
Image 5The flag of the francophone pro-Nazi Rexist party (from History of Belgium)
Image 6Paul-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 7Southern 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 8A historic street in Belgium (from History of Belgium)
Image 9Map showing the area of West Germany occupied by Belgian forces after the Second World War, known as FBA-BSD (from History of Belgium)
Image 10Belgian-Congolese Force Publique soldiers, 1943 (from History of Belgium)
Image 11The Siege of Maastricht (1579) by an anonymous painter (from History of Belgium)
Image 12The Battle of Nieuwpoort (1600) (from History of Belgium)
Image 13French soldiers fight at Fleurus in Belgium during the Revolutionary Wars, 1794 (from History of Belgium)
Image 14The first Belgian-produced steam locomotive, "The Belgian" ("Le Belge") built in 1835 (from History of Belgium)
Image 15Map 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 16The gallow at Breendonk Concentration Camp, near Mechelen (from History of Belgium)
Image 17Painting of steel production in Ougrée by the celebrated 19th century artist Constantin Meunier (from History of Belgium)
Image 18Saint Servatius, bishop of Tongeren and one of the first known Christian figures in the region. 16th century reliquary. (from History of Belgium)
Image 19The Cinquantenaire Arch, built in 1905 (from History of Belgium)
Image 20Belgian F-16 conducts a combat patrol over Afghanistan, 2008 (from History of Belgium)
Image 21Elio Di Rupo, the Prime Minister of Belgium from 2011 until 2014 (from History of Belgium)
The Sack of Antwerp in 1576, in which 17,000 people died. (from History of Belgium)
Image 23Flint knives discovered in Belgian caves (from History of Belgium)
Image 24Massacre of the French in Bruges by Flemish militia during the Franco-Flemish War (from History of Belgium)
Image 25Poster for the 1920 Summer Olympics, held at Antwerp (from History of Belgium)
Image 26Episode of the Belgian Revolution of 1830, Egide Charles Gustave Wappers (1834), in the Musée d'Art Ancien, Brussels (from History of Belgium)
Image 27Surviving Roman city walls in Tongeren, the former city of Atuatuca Tongrorum (from History of Belgium)
Image 28German soldiers examine an abandoned Belgian T13 Tank, 1940 (from History of Belgium)
Image 29A 1906 British Punch cartoon depicting Leopold II as a rubber vine entangling a Congolese man (from History of Belgium)
Image 30Cartoon of "The Rape of Belgium" showing giant hairy fist with Prussian eagle grasping maiden in flowing robes. (from History of Belgium)
Image 31The Roman province of Gallia Belgica in around 120 AD (from History of Belgium)
Image 32Belgian soldier taking cover by the corpses of dead hostages, November 1964 in Stanleyville during Operation Dragon Rouge (from History of Belgium)
Image 33The Seventeen Provinces, and the See of Liège in green (from History of Belgium)
Image 34Walloon workers demonstration in Brussels in the winter of 1960 (from History of Belgium)
Image 35Commemorative Medal awarded to Belgian soldiers who had served during the Franco-Prussian War. (from History of Belgium)
Image 36The flag of Flanders incorporating the Flemish lion, also used by the Flemish Movement. (from History of Belgium)
Image 37The "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 38Site of the massacre of Belgian UN personnel in Kigali, Rwanda. (from History of Belgium)