Belgium
The small, prosperous, divided heart of Europe, a federal kingdom of Dutch-speaking Flemings and French-speaking Walloons, home of the European Union, of beer, chocolate, waffles, and comics. The complete guide.
Belgium is a small, densely peopled, and prosperous country in northwestern Europe, home to about twelve million people, famous for its beer, chocolate, waffles, and fries, and for being the home of the European Union, whose institutions fill its capital, Brussels. It is one of the most distinctive nations in Europe, a federal kingdom divided between two main peoples: the Dutch-speaking Flemings of the northern region of Flanders, who form the majority, and the French-speaking Walloons of the southern region of Wallonia, with a small German-speaking community in the east. This language divide runs through the whole of Belgian life and government. A constitutional monarchy and a founding member of the European Union, Belgium is known for its beautiful old cities, its painters and comic-strip artists, its love of good food and drink, and a wry, modest national humour. This guide walks through the land, the language divide, the European capital, the food, the festivals, and the customs in turn.
Overview
Belgium is a small country in northwestern Europe, lying in the Low Countries by the North Sea, bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany and Luxembourg to the east and southeast, France to the south, and the sea to the west. It is one of the most densely peopled countries in Europe, with about twelve million people in a small space, most of them city dwellers. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities include the great port of Antwerp, and the beautiful historic towns of Ghent and Bruges in the north, and Liege and Charleroi in the south.
Belgium is a constitutional monarchy with a king, currently Philippe, as head of state, and a federal parliamentary government led by a prime minister, currently Bart De Wever. Few countries have so complex a way of governing, for Belgium is a federal state divided into three regions, Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels, and three language communities, with several layers of parliaments and governments to balance its peoples. It has three official languages, Dutch, French, and German, and voting is compulsory. Belgium is a founding member of the European Union, uses the euro, and is historically Roman Catholic, though now largely secular.
A few deep forces shape life in Belgium. There is the small, crowded land at the crossroads of Europe. There is the great divide between the Flemish north and the French-speaking south. There is the role of Brussels as the capital of Europe. There is the deep love of beer, chocolate, and good food. And there is the rich heritage of painting, comics, and festival. The sections that follow trace these and walk through the customs.
A small country at Europe's crossroads
Belgium is a small, flat-to-rolling country at the very crossroads of western Europe, where the Germanic north of the continent meets the Latin south, and this position, between France, the Netherlands, and Germany, has shaped its whole history, making it a meeting place of peoples, a hub of trade, and, too often, a battlefield of Europe's wars. The land falls into clear parts: the low, flat coastal plain and farmland of the north, in Flanders, with its short sandy coast on the North Sea; the central plateaus around Brussels; and the higher, greener, more wooded hills of the south, in Wallonia, rising to the forests of the Ardennes in the southeast.
For so small a country, Belgium is rich in beautiful and historic cities, a legacy of the Middle Ages, when this was one of the wealthiest and most urban corners of Europe, grown rich on cloth and trade. The northern cities of Flanders are among the loveliest in Europe: Bruges, a perfectly preserved medieval town of canals, gabled houses, and belfries; Ghent, proud and lively; and Antwerp, the great port and diamond city on the river Scheldt. Brussels, the capital, mixes its grand old central square, one of the finest in Europe, with the glass towers of the European institutions.
Belgium is densely peopled and highly developed, its small territory closely woven with towns, farms, ports, and industry, and one of the most heavily built and busy landscapes in Europe. It was the first country on the European mainland to industrialise, and the old mining and steel valleys of Wallonia recall that past. Today it is a prosperous, modern, urban country, its small size and central position making it a natural hub of European trade, transport, and diplomacy.
Flemings and Walloons
The single deepest fact of Belgian life is the divide between its two main peoples and their languages, the Dutch-speaking Flemings of the north and the French-speaking Walloons of the south, a split that runs through the whole of the country's politics, culture, and daily life. The northern region, Flanders, home to a clear majority of Belgians, speaks Dutch, in its Flemish forms; the southern region, Wallonia, speaks French; and a small community in the east speaks German. A famous language frontier runs east to west across the country, just south of Brussels, dividing the two halves.
This divide is not merely about words but about two cultures living in one state. North and south have their own languages, media, schools, political parties, and ways of life, and many Belgians on each side do not speak the other's tongue. The capital, Brussels, lies just inside the Flemish north but is mostly French-speaking and officially bilingual, an island between the two worlds. The history of modern Belgium has been, in large part, the long struggle of the once-poorer Flemish north to win equal standing for its language and its people, a struggle it has now largely won, as Flanders has become the more prosperous half.
To manage these tensions, Belgium has built one of the most complex forms of government in the world, a federal state with regions and communities and several parliaments, layered carefully to give each group control of its own affairs in language, culture, and schooling. The result can be cumbersome, and forming a national government has at times taken many months. Yet for all the friction and the talk of splitting, the two communities have lived together in peace, bound by the monarchy, by Brussels, and by a shared Belgian identity, in a country that endures through compromise.
The capital of Europe
Brussels, the capital of Belgium, is also, in effect, the capital of Europe, for it is the home of the main institutions of the European Union and the headquarters of the NATO alliance, making this mid-sized Belgian city one of the great centres of world politics and diplomacy. The European Commission and the Council sit in Brussels, the European Parliament meets there, and tens of thousands of officials, diplomats, lobbyists, and journalists from across the continent and the world live and work in the city, giving it a thoroughly international character.
This role has transformed Brussels into a cosmopolitan, multilingual city where the business of the whole European Union is carried on, and where the word Brussels itself has come to stand, around the world, for the European Union and its decisions. The presence of these institutions, along with NATO and a host of international bodies and corporate offices, has brought wealth, jobs, and a vast foreign community to the city, and made Belgium a hub of European affairs far beyond its small size.
For Belgium, hosting the capital of Europe is a source of pride and a central part of its modern identity, fitting for a small, central country that has long been a meeting place of peoples and a founding member of the European project. Belgium has been, from the beginning, one of the strongest supporters of European unity, seeing in it both its interest and its vocation. The international, European character of Brussels sits at the heart of how modern Belgium sees its place in the world.
A land of beer
Belgium is, by wide agreement, the greatest beer country in the world, with a brewing tradition of extraordinary depth, variety, and quality, and beer is woven into the culture so deeply that Belgian beer culture has been honoured as a treasure of human heritage. The country makes hundreds upon hundreds of distinct beers, in a dazzling range of styles found nowhere else, each traditionally served in its own specially shaped glass, and the Belgians take their beer as seriously as the French take wine.
The variety is astonishing. There are the famous Trappist beers, brewed by monks in a handful of abbeys to ancient recipes, rich and strong; the many abbey beers made in their style; the golden strong ales and the dark brown ales; and, above all, the unique sour beers of the area around Brussels, the lambics and gueuzes, made by a rare method of wild fermentation, and the cherry-flavoured krieks, tart and complex, unlike any other beer on earth. Each region and many towns have their own breweries and specialities.
Beer in Belgium is not just a drink but a part of social and culinary life. The cafe, where friends gather over a beer, is a central institution; beer is cooked into many traditional dishes; and brewing is a craft of deep pride, kept alive in old family breweries and abbeys as well as new ones. To sit in a Belgian cafe working through a long beer menu, each beer in its proper glass, is one of the great pleasures of the country, and the love of fine, varied beer is a defining feature of Belgian life.
The ninth art
Belgium has a love of the comic strip so deep that the country treats it as a true art form, the ninth art, and it is one of the great homes of the comic in the world, having given rise to some of the most famous comic characters ever drawn. For a small nation, Belgium's influence on the world of comics is immense, and the comic strip is woven into its culture, celebrated in museums, painted on the walls of its cities, and beloved by readers of every age.
The most famous creation of all is Tintin, the young reporter with his dog Snowy, drawn by the Belgian artist Herge, whose adventures have been translated into scores of languages and read around the world. From Belgium came too the little blue Smurfs, known everywhere, along with many other beloved characters and a whole tradition of richly drawn comic albums. The comic strip in Belgium is not regarded as mere entertainment for children but as a serious and respected art, with its great artists honoured as national figures.
This love of comics is visible across the country, above all in Brussels, where a famous museum celebrates the art, where comic characters appear in giant murals on the sides of buildings, and where the comic-strip heritage is a point of civic pride. The Belgian gift for the comic, with its blend of fine drawing, storytelling, humour, and gentle adventure, is a distinctive and cherished part of the national culture, and one of the country's best-loved exports to the world.
From Van Eyck to Magritte
Belgium, and above all the old region of Flanders, holds one of the richest painting traditions in the history of European art, reaching back to the late Middle Ages, when the wealthy cities of Flanders nurtured some of the greatest painters the world has known. The Flemish masters of that age, the so-called Flemish Primitives, led by Jan van Eyck, helped pioneer the art of oil painting and produced works of breathtaking detail and beauty that hang today in the country's churches and museums.
The tradition ran on for centuries. The sixteenth century brought Pieter Bruegel, with his teeming, earthy scenes of peasant life and proverb; the seventeenth century brought the great Antwerp master Peter Paul Rubens, whose vast, dramatic canvases made him the most celebrated painter of his age and filled the churches of Flanders. These Flemish painters are among the giants of Western art, and the cities of Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp remain treasure houses of their work.
In modern times Belgium kept its place in art, above all through the surrealists, led by Rene Magritte, whose strange, dreamlike, witty images, the man in the bowler hat, the pipe that is not a pipe, have become some of the most recognised paintings of the twentieth century and reflect a certain surreal, deadpan quality in the Belgian spirit. Belgium also gave the world the flowing Art Nouveau style in architecture, born in Brussels with the architect Victor Horta. From Van Eyck to Magritte, this small country has held an outsized place in the art of Europe.
A Catholic heritage and the carnivals
Belgium is historically a Roman Catholic country, and the Catholic faith shaped its history, its festivals, and its way of life for many centuries, leaving a deep mark still visible in the great cathedrals and churches, the wayside shrines, and the religious processions of the towns, even though the country, like much of western Europe, has grown markedly secular, and regular churchgoing has fallen steeply. Most Belgians are still at least nominally Catholic, and the rituals of baptism, communion, church marriage, and the funeral, along with the great feasts of the Christian year, remain woven into national life.
The Catholic calendar gave rise to Belgium's most colourful and beloved festivals, above all its carnivals, held in the weeks before Lent and famous across Europe. The grandest is the carnival of Binche, an ancient celebration honoured as a treasure of human heritage, whose central figures, the Gilles, dress in striking costumes and tall ostrich-feather hats and toss oranges to the crowd. Other towns, such as Aalst, hold their own wild and satirical carnivals, and these celebrations are among the liveliest in Europe.
Beyond carnival, the religious and folk calendar is rich in processions and festivals. Old towns keep solemn religious processions of great antiquity, such as the Procession of the Holy Blood in Bruges, while cities hold historic pageants recalling their medieval past, and saints' days, harvest fairs, and the great feast of Saint Nicholas, beloved by children in December, mark the year. The day of Saint Nicholas, who brings gifts to children, is a cherished family occasion. These festivals, blending the Catholic heritage with old folk custom, fill the Belgian year with colour and tradition.
Mussels, fries, and chocolate
Belgians love good food and take deep pleasure in eating well, and their small country has a rich and distinctive cuisine, hearty and refined at once, that holds its own with any in Europe, famous above all for a handful of beloved specialities. The national dish, eaten with relish across the country, is mussels with fries, a great steaming pot of mussels cooked in wine or broth, served with a heap of crisp fried potatoes.
Those fries are a national passion and a point of fierce pride, for the Belgians claim to have invented them and certainly make the best, twice-fried to a perfect crispness and served in a paper cone with a dollop of mayonnaise or one of many sauces, from the friteries that stand in every town. Beyond mussels and fries, the Belgian table is rich in hearty dishes: the beef stew slow-cooked in beer, the chicken-and-cream stew called waterzooi, fine sausages, game from the Ardennes, and the mashed vegetables and potato of homely cooking, often touched by the country's superb beer.
Belgium's sweetest fame, though, rests on its chocolate and its waffles. Belgian chocolate is regarded as among the very finest in the world, above all the filled chocolates called pralines, sold in elegant shops and given as treasured gifts. And the Belgian waffle, in its two great forms, the light Brussels waffle and the dense, sweet Liege waffle, is a beloved treat eaten warm from street stalls and cafes. With its mussels, its fries, its chocolate, and its waffles, all washed down with its incomparable beer, Belgium is one of the great eating countries of Europe.
Cycling and the Red Devils
Belgians are passionate about sport, and two pursuits above all stir the nation: cycling, the deep traditional love of the country, and football, its great modern passion. Cycling is woven into Belgian life as in few other places, a national sport followed with fervour, especially in Flanders, where the great one-day road races, above all the Tour of Flanders over the cobbled hills of the north, are huge popular events that draw vast roadside crowds and stop the region in its tracks.
Belgium has produced some of the greatest cyclists in history, none more revered than Eddy Merckx, widely regarded as the finest road racer who ever lived, a national hero of almost mythic standing. The spring classics, the hard, cobbled races of Flanders and the Ardennes, are among the most celebrated in world cycling, and ordinary Belgians ride, watch, and follow the sport with deep knowledge and love.
In recent years football has risen to rival cycling as the national passion, carried by the success of the national team, the Red Devils, who in their golden generation became one of the strongest sides in the world and the focus of intense national pride and joy. Big matches unite the whole country, Flemish and Walloon alike, behind the red shirts, in rare moments of shared national feeling. Between the cobbles of the cycling classics and the roar for the Red Devils, sport is one of the great enthusiasms of Belgian life.
The Belgian character
Belgians are often described as modest, down-to-earth, hard-working, and unpretentious people, with little of the grandeur or self-importance of some of their larger neighbours, and a famous gift for not taking themselves too seriously. They value privacy, comfort, good food and drink, and a quiet, comfortable life, and they tend to be reserved and polite with strangers while warm and loyal with friends and family. Belgians are known for getting on with things sensibly and without fuss.
A distinctive part of the Belgian character is a particular sense of humour, dry, self-deprecating, absurd, and fond of the surreal, which the Belgians turn readily upon themselves and their own complicated, improbable country. This wry, modest humour, along with a gift for compromise and a deep distrust of pomp, helps hold together a nation built on division, and the famous little statue of a urinating boy, the Manneken Pis, beloved symbol of Brussels, captures something of this cheerful refusal to be too grand.
In daily manners, Belgians are courteous and somewhat formal at first, greeting with a handshake, or among friends with kisses on the cheek, the custom varying between the Flemish north and the French-speaking south. They value good manners at the table, punctuality, and discretion, and they keep their home life private. For a visitor, the keys to Belgium are courtesy, modesty, an appreciation of its food and beer, and a light touch of humour. Beneath the reserve and the famous complexity lies a warm, convivial, and good-humoured people.
Family and daily life
Family is at the centre of Belgian life, and family ties are close and important, with a strong value placed on the home, on time spent together, and on the comfortable enjoyment of life. The typical family is small, often with both parents working, but the bonds between relatives and across the generations remain warm, and the gathering of family for meals, Sundays, and the great festivals, above all the feast of Saint Nicholas and Christmas, is cherished.
Belgians have a strong attachment to home and to a comfortable, well-kept private life, expressed in a saying that every Belgian is born with a brick in the stomach, meaning a deep desire to build and own a house of one's own. The home is a private refuge, kept with care, and Belgians take pleasure in the comforts of domestic life, in good food at the family table, and in the small, steady pleasures of the everyday, a quality of cosy contentment.
Daily life in Belgium is comfortable, orderly, and prosperous, with a high standard of living, good public services, and a strong tradition of work balanced by the enjoyment of food, drink, and leisure. Social life revolves around the family, the cafe, and local community and clubs, and around the shared pleasures of the table. Regional and local identities run strong, and people are attached to their own town, region, and language community. The family, the home, and the comforts of daily life are at the heart of Belgian society.
The nation today
Belgium today is a prosperous, modern, and highly developed nation of about twelve million people, a federal constitutional monarchy governed from Brussels, with a king, Philippe, as head of state and a prime minister, Bart De Wever, leading the federal government. It is a wealthy country with a high standard of living, an advanced, service-based and trading economy, and a central place in European affairs as the home of the European Union and NATO. Its people enjoy good public services, fine cities, and one of the comfortable, well-provided ways of life of western Europe.
The nation's defining challenge remains its internal divide. The tension between the Dutch-speaking north and the French-speaking south continues to shape its politics, with strong Flemish movements seeking greater autonomy or even, for some, eventual separation, and forming national governments can be slow and difficult. Like its neighbours, Belgium also weighs questions of immigration, which has made its cities, above all Brussels, highly diverse but also stirred tensions, along with the cost of living, security, and its public finances. Yet the country has held together through generations of strain, bound by compromise.
Through it all, Belgium holds to the identity built over its history. The small, crowded land at the crossroads of Europe still shapes its life and outlook; the divide of Flemings and Walloons still defines its politics; the role of Brussels as the capital of Europe still gives it weight beyond its size; and the love of beer, chocolate, comics, art, and good living still marks its culture. Modest, prosperous, and improbably united in its division, Belgium carries its distinctive traditions into the European future it helped to build.