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For most of its history, what is now Belgium was either a part of a larger territory, such as the Carolingian Empire, or divided into a number of smaller states, prominent among them being the Duchy of Lower Lorraine, the Duchy of Brabant, the County of Flanders, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the County of Namur, the County of Hainaut and the County of Luxembourg.
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 name Vlaanderen is formed from a stem flām-, meaning "flooded area" (cf. Norwegian flaum ‘flood’, English dialectal fleam ‘millstream; trench or gully in a meadow that drains it’), with a suffix -ðr-attached. [50] The Old Dutch form is flāmisk, which becomes vlamesc, vlaemsch in Middle Dutch and Vlaams in Modern Dutch. [51]
The Latin name was revived in 1790 by the short-lived United Belgian States which was created after a revolution against Austrian rule took place in 1789. Since no adjective equivalent to "Belgian" existed at the time, the French noun "Belgique" (or "Belgium") was adopted as both noun and adjective; a phenomenon borrowed from Latin which was ...
Belgian Congo, a former name: As above, following the Free State's union with Belgium in 1908, whose name was often included to distinguish the colony from the French-controlled Congo to its north. For further etymology of "Belgium", see above.
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.)
Its meaning narrowed yet again during the French and Dutch periods and, at Belgian independence, the term designated only Belgians speaking a Romance language (French, Walloon, Picard, etc.) The linguistic cleavage in the politics of Belgium adds a political content to "the emotional cultural, and linguistic concept". [ 9 ]
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.