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It has a surface area of 13,626 km 2 (5,261 sq mi), or 44.4% of Belgium, and is divided into 5 provinces which contain a total of 300 municipalities. The official language is Dutch . French can be used for certain administrative purposes in a dozen particular " municipalities with language facilities " around the Brussels-Capital Region and at ...
In 1962–1963 four language areas were formally determined: the Dutch-language area (now also corresponding with the Flemish Region), the bilingual area of Brussels-Capital, (whose borders came to determine those of the present Brussels-Capital Region), the French-language area, and the German-language area (together coinciding with Wallonia).
Belgian French (French: français de Belgique) is the variety of French spoken mainly among the French Community of Belgium, alongside related Oïl languages of the region such as Walloon, Picard, Champenois, and Lorrain (Gaumais). The French language spoken in Belgium differs very little from that of France or Switzerland.
Estimates of the French-speaking population of Flanders vary from 120,000, [6] around 200,000, [7] to around 300,000. [8] The French Community of Belgium makes up about 40% of the total population of Belgium; 60% of the population belongs to the Flemish Community, and 1% to the German-speaking Community.
Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (Dutch: Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde; French: Bruxelles-Hal-Vilvorde) is a judicial arrondissement encompassing the bilingual—French and Dutch—Brussels-Capital Region, which coincides with the administrative arrondissement of Brussels-Capital and the surrounding Dutch-speaking area of Halle-Vilvoorde, which in turn coincides with the administrative arrondissement of ...
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. In 1940, Nazi Germany re-annexed the region, following its invasion of Belgium during World War II ; after the war it was returned to Belgium.
The traditional language of French Westhoek is a Dutch dialect called West Flemish, the French subdialect of which is known as French Flemish.It was once the dominant language of the region, but a long-time policy of Francization, starting with the introduction of French as the language of education in 1853, has led to the replacement of Dutch with French in the region.
The culture of Belgium involves both the aspects shared by all Belgians regardless of the language they speak and the differences between the main cultural communities: the Dutch-speaking Belgians (mostly Flemish) and the French-speaking Belgians (mostly Walloons and Brusselians).