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The fourth state reform, which took place in 1993 under Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene, consolidated the previous state reforms and turned Belgium into a fully-fledged federal state. The first article of the Belgian Constitution was amended to read, "Belgium is a Federal State which consists of Communities and Regions". During the fourth state ...
Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. The capital and largest metropolitan region is Brussels ; [ c ] other major cities are Antwerp , Ghent , Charleroi , Liège , Bruges , Namur , and Leuven .
Congo Free State, a former name: As above, a translation of the French État indépendant du Congo ("Free State of the Congo"), formed by Leopold II of Belgium in 1885 to administer the holdings of the International Congo Society acknowledged as separate from the country of Belgium at the 1884 Berlin Conference.
Belgians (Dutch: Belgen [ˈbɛlɣə(n)] ⓘ; French: Belges ⓘ; German: Belgier [ˈbɛlɡi̯ɐ] ⓘ) are people identified with the Kingdom of Belgium, a federal state in Western Europe. As Belgium is a multinational state , this connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural rather than ethnic.
Belgium – sovereign country located in northwest Europe. [1] It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations , including NATO , of which it is also a founding member.
Many place-name adjectives and many demonyms are also used for various other things, sometimes with and sometimes without one or more additional words. (Sometimes, the use of one or more additional words is optional.) Notable examples are cuisines, cheeses, cat breeds, dog breeds, and horse breeds. (See List of words derived from toponyms.)
The name is a portmanteau formed from joining the first few letters of each country's name and was first used to name the customs agreement that initiated the union (signed in 1944). [12] It is now used more generally to refer to the geographic, economic, and cultural grouping of the three countries.
Belgium assumes sovereignty of the Congo under the Colonial Charter on the Belgian annexation of the Congo Free State: 1909: 17 December: Death of Leopold II, King of the Belgians 23 December: Accession of Albert I as King of the Belgians 1910: 23 April to 1 November: Exposition Universelle et Internationale (world's fair) held in Brussels. 22 May