Belgium (Kingdom of Belgium)

Abstract

Belgium is a small—32,545 km²—West European democracy with a population of just over 11 million. The country’s defining political feature is its multilingual character. Belgium’s northern half, Flanders, is home to the bulk of the country’s Dutch-speakers (almost 6.5 million) while the south, Wallonia (3.5 million), is French-speaking. This linguistic picture is complicated by the presence of a tiny German-speaking population in the southeast (77,000 people) and by Brussels (a little over 1 million), which is located north of the linguistic border but is predominantly French-speaking. Tensions between linguistic groups have been a central feature of Belgian politics since the late nineteenth century. The perennial problème communautaire, as expressed through nationalist/regionalist politics, was the motor for the federalization of the Belgian state.

∗ The Forum of Federations and the author would like to thank Johanne Poirier for her contributions to this article in the first edition of this volume.