Geography

Belgium is a federal parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy. The country borders the North Sea and also shares borders with France, Germany, Luxembourg and The Netherlands. The modern population of Belgium is approximately 10,258,762. When we talk of Flanders and the Flemings/Flemish and Wallonia and the Walloons, we should define what and where we are actually referring to. As you can see from the maps below, the Flanders region is basically the north of Belgium and this encompasses the Dutch speaking, Flemish community, whilst Wallonia is the south of the country and this encompasses the French speaking, Walloons. There is also a Brussels - Capital region and in south east Belgium, there is a German speaking community.