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Belgium is a federal state comprising three communities and three regions that are based on four language areas. For each of these subdivision types, the subdivisions together make up the entire country; in other words, the types overlap. The language areas were established by the Second Gilson Act, which entered into force on 2 August 1963.
Covering the northern portion of the country, the Flemish Region is primarily Dutch -speaking. With an area of 13,626 km 2 (5,261 sq mi), it accounts for only 45% of Belgium's territory, but 58% of its population. It is one of the most densely populated regions of Europe with around 500/km 2 (1,300/sq mi).
t. e. French Flemish (French Flemish: Fransch vlaemsch, Standard Dutch: Frans-Vlaams, French: flamand français) is a West Flemish dialect spoken in the north of contemporary France. Place names attest to Flemish having been spoken since the 8th century in the part of Flanders that was ceded to France at the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees, and ...
French is the primary language of Wallonia (excluding a part of the East Cantons, which are German-speaking) and in the Brussels-Capital Region, where it is spoken by the majority of the population often as their primary language. [119] In the Flemish Region French is not an official language, with the exception of a dozen municipalities with ...
French Flanders. French Flanders (French: Flandre française [flɑ̃dʁ (ə) fʁɑ̃sɛːz]; Dutch: Frans-Vlaanderen; West Flemish: Frans-Vloandern) is a part of the historical County of Flanders, where Flemish —a Low Franconian dialect cluster of Dutch —was (and to some extent, still is) traditionally spoken. The region lies in the modern ...
In 1995, Brabant was split into three areas: Flemish Brabant, which became a part of the region of Flanders; Walloon Brabant, which became part of the region of Wallonia; and the Brussels-Capital Region, which became a third region. These divisions reflected political tensions between the French-speaking Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Flemish ...
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).
French is an official language in 27 independent nations. French is also the second most geographically widespread language in the world after English, with about 60 countries and territories having it as a de jure or de facto official, administrative, or cultural language. [1]