Flanders
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Flanders Vlaanderen ( Dutch ) Flandre ( French ) |
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| Member State of the Kingdom of Belgium | |
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| Type of member state : | region |
| Official language : | Dutch |
| Administrative headquarters : | Brussels |
| Area : | 13,624 km² |
| Residents : | 6,629,143 (January 1, 2020) |
| Population density : | 490 inhabitants per km² |
| Holiday: | July 11th |
| Prime Minister : | Jan Jambon ( N-VA ) |
| ISO code : | BE-VLG |
| Website: | vlaanderen.be |
| Location in Belgium | |
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Flanders ( Dutch , French la Flandre or les Flandres ) or the Flemish Region (Dutch Vlaams Gewest , French Région flamande ) is one of the three regions of the Kingdom of Belgium and thus a member state of the Belgian federal state. It is located in the northern part of this kingdom and home to most of the Flemish (Dutch Vlamingen ) designated Dutch-speaking Belgians; almost all of the rest live in the bilingual Brussels-Capital region , which is completely surrounded by Flanders. The third region of Belgium is the predominantly French-speaking Wallonia , south of Flanders.
Flanders covers an area of around 13,624 square kilometers and has a population of 6,629,143 (as of January 1, 2020). The institutions of the Flemish Region have been merged with those of the Flemish Community and are based in Brussels . In Flanders, from west to east, are the provinces of West Flanders , East Flanders , Flemish Brabant , Antwerp and Limburg .
story
The present-day Belgian region of Flanders partially includes the historical territories of the County of Flanders , the Duchy of Brabant and the Duchy of Limburg .
At the time of the Roman Empire, the region belonged to the province of Gallia Belgica and in late antiquity to the Belgica secunda . From the end of the 4th century, the fortified towns and forts on the coast belonged to the Limes of the so-called Saxon coast whose crews were under the command of a Dux Belgicae secundae . In the Middle Ages , the county of Flanders extended far into what is now France ( Dunkirk , Lille ). The region around Dunkirk belongs to the traditional Dutch language area, but since the French Revolution French has been prescribed to the residents as the only official and school language, so that the Dutch mother tongue has been increasingly displaced in an ongoing linguistic process . Other areas of today's French Flanders , however, have long been inhabited by a French-speaking population (Waals-Vlaanderen) .
Flanders came to West Franconia in 843 through the Treaty of Verdun . Baldwin I († 879 ), son of Charles the Bald , founded the Flemish Counts, which the to 932 Artois conquered and Baldwin V (1035-67) in 1056 from Emperor the investiture with imperial Flanders ( "Land of the four Ambachten" Zeeland Islands , County Aalst ). Balduin VI. (1067–70) temporarily united Hainaut , Robert I (1071–93) Holland with Flanders, whose political and economic focus was henceforth in the north. Hainaut was reunited with Flanders in 1191 under Baldwin VIII, whose French brother-in-law, Philip II August , won Artois back and, after the Battle of Bouvines (1214), brought the French suzerainty back to life. Inheritance and throne disputes (since 1241) separated Hainaut from Flanders and forced the new Dampierre dynasty, who had died out in the male line, to join France and make concessions to the Flemish cities of Bruges, Ghent and Ypres . With their victory in the Spore Battle at Kortrijk (1302) and later renunciation (1320) of Walloon Flanders (Lille, Douai , Béthune ), Flanders became linguistically purely Flemish. Their attitude brought about a social uprising in Seeflanders from 1323-28, their jealousy in the 14th century thwarted the Artevelde enterprise against Count Ludwig I and Ludwig II, and in 1385 the union of Flanders with Burgundy was facilitated.
After the death of the last Burgundian ruler Charles the Bold in the Battle of Nancy in 1477, his possessions were between the Habsburg Archduke Maximilian of Austria, who later became Emperor Maximilian I , and King Ludwig XI. divided by France. Flanders came under the rule of the Habsburgs and was part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. After the death of Charles V , the entire former Burgundian possessions, including Flanders, were assigned to the Spanish Habsburgs. They tried by force to suppress the spreading Protestantism. Because of this and also because of the restriction of the old freedoms, the Dutch provinces revolted against Spain. The provinces of the Union of Utrecht broke away from Spain in 1579 and were able to fight for their independence in the so-called Eighty Years War . In the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 the independence of the (northern) Netherlands was internationally confirmed, while Flanders with the southern provinces remained under Spanish rule. In the wars with Louis XIV of France, Spain had to cede southern parts of its possessions to France (including the Artois) and the current border between Belgium and France developed. After the Spanish Habsburgs died out and the War of the Spanish Succession , Flanders and the other former Spanish provinces came under Austro-Habsburg rule in the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 and remained there until it was conquered by France in the course of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1794. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands was created, which included what is now Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. However, in the Belgian Revolution of 1830, the southern part split off and the Kingdom of Belgium was established. Since then, Flanders has shared the history of Belgium.
After Germany's attack on neutral Belgium in World War I , the Franco-German / British front ran across Flanders for four years. It was the scene of bitter battles ( First , Second and Third Battle of Flanders ). The trench warfare of the armies in Belgium destroyed many villages and towns in this region. The names of a few small Flemish villages still evoke memories of the great death: Ypres , Passendale , Langemark . In numerous places, monuments and military cemeteries are a reminder of the horrors.
Since the Second World War , Flanders' economic power has grown and, at the same time, self-confidence towards the formerly dominant Walloon part of the country. This is partly expressed in secession efforts, which are politically articulated in the parties N-VA and Vlaams Belang .
The Tour of Flanders is the most popular one-day cycling race in Belgium.
population
languages
The official language in Flanders and the commonly used written language is the standard Dutch language. As Belgian Dutch , it differs slightly from the language used in the Netherlands. Dialects are spoken in Flanders, which can be divided into East Flemish , West Flemish , Brabantian and Limburgish .
In the Flemish communities around Brussels , but also elsewhere along the language border between Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia, many Belgians live with French as their mother tongue. In some of these municipalities, French speakers have a legal right to use their language in dealings with the authorities or in schools. (In some municipalities in Wallonia, Dutch speakers also have this right.) The facilities for those who speak other languages are called facilities and a corresponding municipality is called facilities municipality .
Cities
Important Flemish cities are Antwerp (529,247 inhabitants), Ghent (263,927), Bruges (118,656), Leuven (102,275), Mechelen (86,921), Aalst (87,332), Kortrijk (77,109), Hasselt (78,714) and Ostend (71,647).
religion
While Flanders was practically under permanent Habsburg and thus Catholic supremacy from 1482 to the First Coalition War in 1794 , the more northerly Dutch provinces, which were predominantly Protestant, abandoned Habsburg and founded the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands in 1581 , a forerunner of today's Dutch State . The Reformation initially found supporters in Flanders, but was suppressed here by the Habsburgs. During the Reformation , Flanders was one of the centers of the radical Reformation Anabaptist movement . However, oppression and persecution made the communities die out, and many Anabaptists emigrated to other Low German regions (→ Low German Anabaptists ). Accordingly, there were Flemish Mennonite communities in the Netherlands, Germany and among the Russian mennonites for a long time. To this day, the Flemings are predominantly Catholic. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Flanders was known for its strong Catholic piety. The region produced numerous priests and religious, often also serving in overseas missions. Flanders was also a center of Political Catholicism and, after 1945, Christian Democracy . Since the 1960s, as in other areas of Western Europe, a stronger secularization set in .
politics
Prime Minister of Flanders
| Surname | Beginning of the term of office | Term expires | Political party |
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| Gaston Geens | 22nd December 1981 | January 21, 1992 | CVP |
| Luc Van den Brande | February 21, 1992 | July 13, 1999 | CVP |
| Patrick Dewael | July 13, 1999 | June 5, 2003 | VLD |
| Renaat Landuyt (acting) | June 5, 2003 | June 11, 2003 | SPA |
| Bart Somers | June 11, 2003 | July 20, 2004 | VLD |
| Yves Leterme | July 20, 2004 | June 28, 2007 | CD&V |
| Kris Peeters | June 28, 2007 | July 25, 2014 | CD&V |
| Geert Bourgeois | July 25, 2014 | 2nd July 2019 | N-VA |
| Liesbeth Homans | 2nd July 2019 | October 2, 2019 | N-VA |
| Jan Jambon | October 2, 2019 | officiating | N-VA |
Composition of the Flemish Parliament (2019-2024)
| Political party | Seats | |||
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| Flanders | Brussels | total | ||
| • | Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (N-VA) | 33 | 2 | 35 |
| Vlaams Belang | 23 | 0 | 23 | |
| • | Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams (CD&V) | 19th | 0 | 19th |
| • | Open Vlaamse Liberalen en Democrats (Open VLD) | 15th | 1 | 16 |
| Great | 12th | 2 | 14th | |
| Socialist Partij Anders (sp.a) | 12th | 1 | 13 | |
| Partij van de Arbeid (PVDA) | 4th | 0 | 4th | |
| total | 118 | 6th | 124 | |
| Government parties are marked with a dot. (•) | ||||
Political structure
The Flemish Region is divided into five provinces:
| flag | province | capital city | Districts | Municipalities | Residents January 1, 2020 |
Area km² |
Density of population / km² |
NIS code |
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Antwerp | Antwerp | 3 | 69 | 1,869,730 | 2,867.42 | 652 | 10,000 |
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Flemish Brabant | Lions | 2 | 65 | 1,155,843 | 2,106.13 | 549 | 20001 |
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Limburg | Hasselt | 3 | 42 | 877.370 | 2,422.15 | 362 | 70000 |
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East Flanders | Ghent | 6th | 60 | 1,525,255 | 2,982.24 | 511 | 40000 |
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West Flanders | Bruges | 3 | 64 | 1,200,945 | 3,144.32 | 382 | 30000 |
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Flanders region | Brussels | 17th | 300 | 6,629,143 | 13,522.26 | 490 | 2000 |
Today's political structure
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Political system of Belgium and in it, inter alia. even:
- the Walloon region , which includes the French and German-speaking areas
- the Brussels-Capital Region , which includes the bilingual Brussels-Capital area
business
In the 19th century, the industrial revolution , aided by considerable coal deposits , particularly affected the southern neighboring region of Wallonia , while in Flanders only Ghent was able to develop into an industrial center. Unlike in the south of Belgium, which is characterized by the coal and steel industry , textile processing companies were primarily concentrated in Ghent, which was able to build on a tradition as a textile trading metropolis that went back to the Middle Ages. Overall, Flanders traditionally profited strongly from trade and seafaring, but much less from the incipient industrialization than Wallonia and was increasingly economically left behind.
With the decline of Walloon heavy industry in the second half of the 20th century, structural change that has continued to this day began, while Flanders now developed into the economically leading part of Belgium. Flanders benefits in particular from the economic importance of Antwerp, which in turn is primarily due to the port of Antwerp and Antwerp's position as the world's leading center for trading and processing diamonds .
Compared to the gross domestic product of the European Union , expressed in purchasing power standards, Flanders reached 120 percent of the EU-27 average in 2017 (Belgium 116%; Wallonia 84%).
Culture
See also
Web links
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Further content in the sister projects of Wikipedia:
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Commons | - Media content (category) |
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Wiktionary | - Dictionary entries |
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Wikinews | - News |
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Wikiquote | - Quotes |
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Wikivoyage | - Travel Guide |
- Flemish Government website (multilingual)
- Flemish Parliament website (Dutch)
- Flemish Tourism Authority website (multilingual)
literature
- Flanders Wegweiser , Ed. Tourismus Zentrale, Flanders, 104 pp. (2014).
Individual evidence
- ^ La Libre (Belgium) : La Belgique est désormais un peu plus grande . online , published on 10 January 2019 at 19:22: Adaptation of the area to new requirements of Eurostat , making the footprint km through the inclusion of beaches at low tide from 2019 to 160 2 has increased
- ↑ a b Mouvement de la population en 2020. ( XLSX ; 2.56 MB ) In: statbel.fgov.be. Statbel - Direction générale Statistique - Statistics Belgium ( Federal Public Service ), accessed on July 4, 2021 (French).
- ↑ Notitia dignitatum Occ. XXXVIII
- ↑ Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online: Flemish Mennonites
- ↑ Regional GDP per capita ranged from 31% to 626% of the EU average in 2017. Retrieved October 3, 2019 .
| Communities: |
German-speaking community | Flemish Community | French community |
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Coordinates: 51 ° 2 ′ N , 4 ° 16 ′ E