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Belgium, [a] officially the Kingdom of Belgium, [b] is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the south, and the North Sea to the west. It covers an area of 30,689 km 2 (11,849 sq mi) [4] and has a population of more than 11.7 million ...
The Executive (government) of the German-speaking Community meets in Eupen.. The German-speaking Community (German: Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft (Belgiens), pronounced [ˈdɔʏtʃˌʃpʁaːxɪɡə ɡəˈmaɪnʃaft ˈbɛlɡi̯əns], DG), [a] also known as East Belgium (German: Ostbelgien [ˈɔstˌbɛlɡi̯ən] ⓘ), [2] [b] is one of the three federal communities of Belgium. [3]
These countries (with the addition of South Tyrol of Italy) also form the Council for German Orthography and are referred to as the German Sprachraum (German language area). Since 2004, Meetings of German-speaking countries have been held annually with six participants: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Switzerland: [1]
German is the least prevalent official language in Belgium, spoken natively by less than 1% of the population. The German-speaking Community of Belgium numbers 77,000, residing in an area of Belgium that was ceded by the former German Empire as part of the Treaty of Versailles, which concluded World War I.
The German-speaking community is composed of the German-speaking parts of the lands that were annexed in 1920 from Germany. In addition, in contemporary Belgium there are also some other German-speaking areas that belonged to Belgium even before 1920, but they are not currently considered officially part of the German-speaking community in ...
Belgium was invaded and occupied by Germany in the First and Second World Wars, with Belgian civilians being victims of German war crimes (see: Rape of Belgium, Vinkt massacre). The territory currently comprising the German-speaking community in Belgium was taken from Germany following World War I, as stipulated the Treaty of Versailles as ...
It has a surface area of 16,901 km 2 (6,526 sq mi), or 55.1% of Belgium, and is also divided into 5 provinces which contain a total of 262 municipalities. Its capital is Namur. The official languages are French and, only in the nine eastern municipalities that form the German-speaking Community near the German border, German.
German is a language of Austria, Belgium, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland; it also has regional status in Italy, Poland, Namibia and Denmark. German also continues to be spoken as a minority language by immigrant communities in North America, South America