| Belgium: |
A federal country, with three official languages and an
intense regional rivalry, Belgium has a cultural diversity that belies its
rather dull reputation. Its population of around ten million is divided between
Flemish-speakers (about sixty percent) and French-speaking Walloons (forty
percent), with a few pockets of German-speakers in the east. Prosperity has
shifted back and forth between the two leading communities over the centuries,
and relations have long been acrimonious. The constitution was redrawn in 1980
on a federal basis, with three separate entities: the Flemish North, Walloon
South, and Brussels, which is officially bilingual (although its population is
eighty percent French - speaking). The north and south of Belgium are visually
very different. Marking the meeting of the two, Brussels, the capital, is a
culturally varied city at the heart of the European Union.
The north, made up of the provinces of West and East Flanders, Antwerp, Limburg
and much of Brabant, is mainly flat, with a landscape and architecture not
unlike Holland. Antwerp is the second city, a bustling old port with doses of
high art, redolent of its sixteenth-century golden age. Further west lie the
great historic cities, Bruges and Ghent, with a stunning concentration of
Flemish art and architecture. By contrast, Belgium's most scenically rewarding
region, the Ardennes, an area of deep, wooded valleys, high elevations and dark
caverns, sprawls across the south of the country with the attractive town of
Namur the obvious gateway.
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| Find out more information on Belgium by
clicking on the following links: |
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Belgium Tourist Office http://www.visitbelgium.com
Flanders Tourist Office http://www.visitbelgium.com
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