The Kingdom of Belgium is a kingdom in west Europe.
The territory now known as Belgium originally formed only a section of that known to Caesar as the territory of the Belgae, extending from the right bank of the Seine to the left bank of the Rhine, and to the ocean. This district continued under Roman sway until the decline of the empire; subsequently formed part of the kingdom of Clevis; and then of that of Charlemagne, whose ancestors belonged to Landen and Herstal on the confines of the Ardennes. After the breaking up of the empire of Charlemagne Belgium formed part of the kingdom of Lotharingia under Charlemagne's grandson, Lothaire; Artois and Flanders, however, belonging to France by the treaty of Verdun.
For more than a century this kingdom was contended for by the kings of France and the emperors of Germany. In 953 it was conferred by the Emperor Otto upon Bruno, archbishop of Cologne, who assumed the title of archduke, and divided it into two duchies: Upper and Lower Lorraine. In the frequent struggles which took place during the eleventh century Luxemburg, Namur, Hainaut, and Liege usually sided with France, while Brabant, Holland, and Flanders commonly took the side of Germany. The contest between the civic and industrial organizations and feudalism, which went on through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and in which Flanders bore a leading part, was temporarily closed by the defeat of the Ghentese under Van Artevelde in 1382. In 1384 Flanders and Artois fell to the house of Burgundy, which in less than a century acquired the whole of the Netherlands. The death of Charles the Bold at Nancy, in his attempt to raise the duchy into a kingdom in 1477, was followed by the succession and marriage of his daughter, Mary of Burgundy, by which the Netherlands became an Austrian possession. With the accession, however, of the Austrian house of Hapsburg to the Spanish throne, the Netherlands, after a brief period of prosperity attended by the spread of the reformed religion, became the scene of increasingly severe persecution under Charles V and Philip II of Spain. Driven to rebellion, the seven northern states under William of Orange, the Silent, succeeded in establishing their independence, but the southern portion, or Belgium, continued under the Spanish yoke.
From 1598 to 1621 the Spanish Netherlands were transferred as an independent kingdom to the Austrian branch of the family by the marriage of Isabella, daughter of Philip II, with the Archduke Albert of Austria. He died childless, however, and they reverted to Spain. After being twice conquered by Louis XIV, conquered again by Marlborough, coveted by all the powers, deprived of territory on the one side by Holland and on the other by France, the Southern Netherlands were at length in 1714, by the peace of Utrecht, again placed under the dominion of Austria, with the name of the Austrian Netherlands.
During the Austrian war of succession the French under Saxe conquered nearly the whole country, but restored it in 1748 by the peace of Aix-la-Ghapelle. The Seven Years' War of 1756 to 1763 did not affect Belgium, and in that period, and during the peace which followed, she regained much of her prosperity under Maria Theresa and Charles of Lorraine. On the succession of Joseph II, the 'philosophic emperor', a serious insurrection occurred, the Austrian army being defeated at Turnhout, and the provinces forming themselves into an independent state as united Belgium in 1790. They had scarcely been subdued again by Austria before they were conquered by the revolutionary armies of France, and the country divided into French departments, the Austrian rule being practically closed by the battle of Fleurus in 1794, and the French possession confirmed by the treaties of Campo Formio in 1797 and Luneville in 1801.
In 1815 Belgium was united by the Congress of Vienna to Holland, both countries together now forming one state, the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This union lasted until 1830, when a revolt broke out among the Belgians, and soon attained such dimensions that the Dutch troops were unable to repress it. A convention of the great powers assembled in London, favoured the separation of the two countries, and drew up a treaty to regulate it; the National Congress of Belgium offering the crown, on the recommendation of England, to Leopold, prince of Saxe-Coburg, who acceded to it under the title of Leopold I, on July the 21st, 1831. In November of the same year the five powers guaranteed the crown to him by the treaty of London, and the remaining difficulties with Holland were settled in 1839, when the Dutch claims to territory in Limburg and Luxemburg were withdrawn. The reign of Leopold I was for Belgium a prosperous period of thirty-four years. Leopold II succeeded his father in 1865.
Belgium It has a total area of 30,510 km2. The climate is temperate having mild winters and cool summers, rainy, humid, cloudy. The terrain may be regarded roughly as an inclined plain, falling away in height from the southern district of the Ardennes until in the north and west it becomes only a few feet above sea-level. The surface rocks in the south consist of slate, old red sandstone, and mountain limestone; towards the north-west a coal and iron field stretches across the provinces of Hainaut and Liege, skirting those of Namur and Luxemburg. North and west of this coalfield a more recent formation is found, covered inland by deep beds of clay and on the coast by sand-dunes.
The chief rivers are the Scheldt or Schelde and Meuse or Maas, which cross the country in a northeasterly direction; other navigable streams are the Dender, Dyle, Lys, Ourthe, Rupel, and Sambre. There are also a number of canals. Natural resources are coal and natural gas. The religion is 75% Roman Catholic; the remainder mainly Protestant and other religions. There are three official languages spoken in belgium: Flemish or Dutch, French, and German. The language divisions follow cultural divisions, and in the capital, Brussels which resides in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, everyone is expected to be bilingual in Dutch and French. German is spoken in a small part of Belgium adjoining the bnorder with Germany. Throughout Belgium it is essential to be bilingual in French and Dutch, and this has caused much difficulties for the population and political turmoil.
Abbreviations
Gazetteer
Research Belgium