Follow TV Tropes

Following

Useful Notes / Belgium

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Be-map.png
Europe's battlefield, for better or worse.

"Sire... you reign over two peoples. In Belgium there are Walloons and Flemings. There are no Belgians."

There's a long-standing joke about famous Belgians or the lack thereof. The facts are different.

Modern Belgium (Dutch: België, French: Belgique, German: Belgien), officially known as the Kingdom of Belgium (Dutch: Koninkrijk België, French: Royaume de Belgique, German: Königreich Belgien), is a Western European country and something of a historical anomaly. Historically it was divided into two regions: in the north is Flanders, home of the Dutch-speaking Flemish, and in the south is Wallonia, with its French-speaking Walloons. Throughout The Middle Ages, the wool trade in Flanders made towns like Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp among the most prosperous in the world. It's worth noting that in 1302 the French lost the 'Battle of the Golden Spurs'. It's one of first times in the Middle Ages where heavy cavalry was annihilated by infantry, coming a few years after the battle of Stirling. It was especially painful for the French because the Flemish soldiers were mostly non-noble (or, as in the parlance of the time, lowborn) and not that interested in taking prisoners for ransom, which resulted in a very large number of French nobles dying in battle, rather than being captured and paroled, the usual treatment for defeated noblemen. Hence the name, the golden spurs were worn by rich nobility and it is said that after the battle over 500 of them were taken from the battlefield. Among the dead were the French commander and the chief advisor to the king of France. The date of the battle is the national holiday of Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium.

Through a very savvy marital politic, the various local principalities, one by one (except the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, which, being governed by Catholic bishops, could make no marital alliances, for obvious reasons), became the possession of the Dukes of Burgundy. The King of Spain, Charles V, then inherited these "Low Countries", and modern Belgium and the Netherlands became the Spanish Netherlands, while the principality of Liège belonged to the German Confederation. Eventually, cultural and religious tensions led to the mostly Calvinist Dutch to revolt against Charles' successors and attempt to break away, but succeeded only partially, with the northern Netherlands (mostly swampy and poor at the time) securing their independence from the Spanish after an 80-year-long war. The conflict attracted the involvement of basically all of Europe and was ultimately ruinous for Spain, but the Dutch still proved incapable of defeating the Spanish on land, and so the southern Netherlands, today comprising all of Belgium, and some of France and Germany, remained under Spanish sovereignty, after which the remaining Flemish Calvinists (most had fled to the independent Dutch Republic, where they helped make the new state a world power) were ruthlessly recatholicized.

After recatholicization, Spanish rule continued until the War of the Spanish Succession, which came about because the Spanish Habsburg line had died out of inbreeding. When that war ended with the French Bourbons taking the throne of Spain, the other European powers decided it was too dangerous to allow the French dynasty to also take the Southern Netherlands on France's northern border as well as Spain to the south, and therefore insisted that the Southern Netherlands be handed over to the junior Habsburg branch in Austria. That being said, the Austrians really didn't care to rule the Southern Netherlands—which were discontinuous from the rest of their direct holdings in Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and the Balkans—and so the Austrian Habsburgs spent most of the 18th century trying to pawn off their holdings in the Low Countries to other powers in exchange for something closer to home. They never got it, largely because the only power that might both interested and actually able to give the Habsburgs territory contiguous with or at least near their empire was Prussia, and Prussia was the one power Austria really did not want to take the territory.

During their rebellion of 1788-1790 against the Enlightened autocrat Emperor Joseph II, these declared their independence as the United Belgian States (the Belgian tricolor of black, yellow, and red also dates back to the revolution of 1788). The new nation was named after a Celtic tribe from the region which already had given its name to the province that had encompassed the northern part of Roman Gaul. However, a bad split between liberals and Catholic conservatives soon developed and enabled the Austrians to put down the rebellion/revolution. Soon after, the region was conquered by the Revolutionary French armies and added to the French Republic (later Empire) in 1795. Shortly before the Battle of Waterloo (which took place just south of Brussels), the Kingdom of the United Netherlands was created at the Congress of Vienna from the former Dutch Republic (which itself had given way to the French puppet Batavian Republic), the former Austrian Netherlands (including Luxembourg) and the former Prince-Bishopric of Liège.

The Southern Netherlands however protested against the reign, mainly because of the fact that they were obliged to speak Dutch (while there was a region that spoke French) and the fact that Willem I was an enlightened king and enforced neutrality in religion by making universities that are tolerant towards those religions (which of course enraged both the Southern Dutch democrats and Roman-Catholics). In 1830 there was an opera shown called De Stomme van Portici which led towards a very nationalist protest against the practices of king Willem I, which eventually was a success and forced Wilhelm I to recognize the Southern Netherlands as an independent country.

To placate Prussia (who saw Belgium as a potential French pawn), Belgium declared eternal neutrality and this was guaranteed by Britain and France, who promised to defend Belgium if attacked, and attack Belgium if she was the aggressor. (Declaring neutrality made logical sense as well, since Belgium was a small country—Belgium at war would hold out about a week or two longer than neutral Belgium.) This would come back to bite all concerned in the collective ass later. At the same time, the eastern half of the grand duchy of Luxembourg (which since 1815 also belonged to the German Confederation) was separated from Belgium as a nation in its own right, though it was technically the personal property of the kings of the Netherlands. In 1831 the Belgians elected themselves a king, Leopold I, from the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the same family as the British royal family (descended from Queen Victoria's consort Prince Albert-both the Belgian and British branches renamed themselves during World War I to put distance between the dynasty and the Germans who had inflicted so much pain upon their respective countries; the British side famously chose to style itself The House of Windsor, while their Belgian cousins rather boringly elected to be known as the House of Belgium).

Thanks to a few Belgian entrepreneurs that made plans to steal machines from British industries, Belgium underwent a major industrial revolution (the whole place was bursting with coal, iron, and sulphur), after which Belgium become one of the most industrialized states in Europe. Further down the line, the Belgians acquired colonies during the Scramble for Africa in what is today the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. The Belgian Congo, or the Congo Free State, became infamous for its horrific treatment of the native Africans (Heart of Darkness is set there). And by horrible, we mean that in Belgian Congo a single bullet was literally worth more than the life of a native man (soldiers stationed in Congo had to produce the severed right hand of a native to justify every fired bullet, which meant that soldiers had to go out and slaughter a few natives every once in a while to explain missed shots). Torture of native workers, destruction of other villages and rape were common, and the natives were so dehumanized by both Stanley's private army, the Force Publique, and the Congo administration that one official used severed human heads as a makeshift fence for his garden. Originally the Congo was owned by King Leopold personally, but after exposure by Christian missionaries and a growing international outcry, the Belgian government took over to stop the atrocities. Which should tell you how bad the situation was, when even the other colonial powers think you're going too far.

In 1914, Germany violated Belgium's neutrality, as they were using it as a back-door to invade France, activating the United Kingdom's responsibilities as the guarantor of Belgian neutrality. When the Belgians refused to co-operate, Germany invaded, and although the stories have been wildly exaggerated since, certainly didn't conduct themselves enormously well: it has been dubbed "The Rape of Belgium", which at the time was a much less emotive term and meant "sacking and plundering". This invasion caused Britain's entry into World War I. Technically, Belgium was never completely occupied, as the Belgian army put up a fight massive enough to delay the German battleplan and prevent them from capturing Paris. As World War I slowed down into long, slow trench warfare, a small part of Belgian soil remained unconquered. Belgium as a nation was completely crushed by German economic exploitation and ceaseless warfare. Ypres and Passchendale, sites of several of World War I's bloodiest and most pointless battles, are in Belgium. The poem 'In Flanders fields' is one of the best-known World War I poems and The Poppy, which normally doesn't grow in numbers in Flanders, became a symbol.

In 1940, Germany invaded again, and was even less civil than the first time. Belgium was overrun very quickly - as with France, its leaders had prepared for a retread of World War I and relied on stationary forts for defense. Paratroopers, gliders and tanks rendered them harmless in a matter of hours. This wasn't helped by the Belgian government desperately clinging to the hope that the Germans might leave them alone this time and not co-operating with the French and British defense plans until they were actually under attack. Belgian pilots in the Battle of Britain contributed to La Résistance.

Belgium had a weird influence on both World Wars. A Belgian weapon (manufactured by FN) was used by Gavrilo Princip to kill Franz Ferdinand, thus starting World War I. World War II was ended by the bomb on Hiroshima, which used uranium mined in Congo, at that time a Belgian colony.

The Liège region has also long been home to some of Europe's premier weapons manufacturers, with most of Belgium's major gun-makers uniting in 1889 to form FN. Most of the world's armies now use at least some FN-made weapons.

Belgium was a founding member of NATO and The European Union, and home to many of the institutions of both organisations, and serves as the de facto capital of the European Union. It has adopted the Euro, replacing the former "money" that was the Belgian franc.

"Brussels" is often used as a journalistic metonym for the EU, especially where stories involve faceless bureaucrats and/or apparently bizarre decisions taken by same. For Alliterative Naming, they are often "Barmy Brussels Bureaucrats", or sometimes just "Eurocrats". The EU's main bodies are divided between Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg, with the EU Parliament actually located both in Brussels and in the French city.

The current king is Philippe, whose official title is "King of the Belgians" rather than "King of Belgium", to distinguish him as a monarch who rules by popular will, rather than by legal or divine right.

The whole "Boring Belgium" thing has never really extended to the cuisine. It's known for its chocolate as well as waffles and mussels. "French fries" also originated in Belgium and are a true obsession across Belgium; practically everywhere in Belgium you will find little carts and kiosks serving fries and a few other snacks with a wide variety of sauces. However, Belgium's true culinary pride and joy are its breweries; Belgium is basically the world's beer Heaven, making the finest beers in the world. Belgium has more breweries per capita than any other country, and includes several "Trappist breweries" managed by monks. Attention to detail is so high that each brand of Belgian beer has its own goblet specifically designed to enhance its characteristics, and Belgian brewers in general are some of the best in the world.note  They are also among the most creative: with the possible exception of post-1980 US craft brewers, nobody in history has matched the Belgian brewers in sheer inventiveness, with a willingness to put all kinds of interesting flavorings (particularly spices) to beer, and messing around with different brewing conditions (changing the brewing time, playing with the ingredients of the mash, experimenting—sometimes unintentionally—with the kinds of microbes doing the fermentation, etc.) to change the flavor or other characteristics of the product.

The beer is one thing that the Flemings and Walloons will absolutely agree gives them some points of commonality and sets them off from their neighbors (France is better known for wine, and Dutch and German beer is quite different from the Belgian, tending towards well-made but rather boring lagers, while the inventive Belgian beer is primarily ale). Put the mussels, fries, and beer together and you have an extremely stereotypical but also truly very common (in bars anyway) and extremely tasty Belgian meal. The Belgian kitchen can also take pride in two noted stews: waterzooi (a stew of fish or chicken with leeks and cream) and carbonade flamande (which is, in essence, a boeuf bourgignon but with the burgundy wine replaced with a sourish Belgian beer (typically an Abbey Brown or Flemish Red).

The entire family of saxophones were invented by Adolphe Sax, born in Dinant, Belgium. Patent taken for France in 1848. There are ten kinds of saxophones (on an interesting note, the saxophone was later banned in Cuba under Fidel Castro due to being of Belgian invention, as a means of protesting their hold over the Congo).

The dynamo was invented by Zénobe Gramme, born in Jehay-Bodegnée, Belgium.

The famous and long-running comic book Tintin comes from Belgium, as do several other Belgian Comics (in the 1990s it was said that only three things hold Belgium together - the royal family, the Red Devils (the national football/soccer team), and comics!). In the English-speaking world the best-known Belgian comics characters apart from Tintin and co. are probably Lucky Luke, The Smurfs and Marsupilami. In the world of music, Belgium is probably best known for 20th-century songwriter Jacques Brel, and its Techno music, particularly on Maurice Engelen aka Praga Khan, and his most famous project, porno-house group Lords of Acid. Other well known Belgian bands and musicians are Front 242, Hooverphonic, Technotronic, Soulwax, K's Choice, Stromae, and dEUS. Even the infamous advert Stressmannetje ("Hier Nen Euro") is Belgian.

Also noteworthy: Belgium has three official languages, namely Dutch (in the smaller, but more populous, north), French (in the larger, but less populated south) and German (a tiny area in the east). English is also the lingua franca in many European institutions in Brussels. The Belgian dialects of Dutch are known as Flemish. Some places in the southern part of the country, Wallonia, also have Walloon, a set of threatened Romance languages closely related to but distinct from French.note  Actual German is only spoken in two cities, Eupen and Malmedy, which were transferred from Germany to Belgium after WW1 in a referendum which required voters to give their name and address to the occupying armies, prompting Germans to be a bit careful about who they voted for. Yes, Belgians are used to linguistic confusion, it's a fact of life!

Not just confusion even - entire governments have been brought down over linguistic arguments that might seem incredibly petty to outsiders, such as the debate over the Voeren/Fourons. And every organization (like political parties, unions and so on) effectively exists twice: once in the French part, once in the Flemish part.

An outsider watching a Belgian political debate may be surprised by the garishly colored clothes worn by the politicians. This is because each major party is strongly attached to a color (red for the socialists, blue for the liberals, orange for the (ex-) Christian-democrats and green for the ecologists) and it has become a habit for the politicians to mark their allegiance by an article of clothing (most commonly a shirt, necktie or bow tie,note  but also eyeglasses frames or even a dress suit). The Belgian politician fears no ridicule (or are just that good in modern marketing).

A related trend is the nicknaming of the governmental coalitions (often formed with six or more parties of sometimes widely different ideologies) by a plant (or other) name alluding to the blend of their colors. Witness "the rainbow" (for a socialist/ecologist/liberal alliance); "the violet" (socialist/liberal); "the olive tree" (socialist/ecologist/Christian-democrat); or "the blue orange" (Christian-democrat/liberal).

The eternal political struggle between its two major regions is infamous in Europe and beyond; in 2006, the French-speaking community's public broadcaster aired a spoof news broadcast claiming that Flanders had become independent and the royal family had fled. The political structure of Belgium is designed to prevent either region from imposing its will upon the other in keeping with the national motto 'Strength through Unity'. In practice this tends to lead to obstructionism: both regions often block political decisions by the other region, either on principle or to demand corresponding benefits for their own region. Any decisions that do make it out tend to be heavily delayed and carefully weighed.

In April 2010, the federal government was bought down over the long-running debate surrounding the electoral arrondissement of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (BHV for most Belgians). This electoral arrondissement allows Walloon politicians to be elected on Flemish soil, angering Flemish nationalists who feel threatened by an encroaching "Frenchification" . It's not the first time that this debate caused trouble, either. After the general elections of June 2007, it took six months for a new government to be formed, partly because of this debate. The 2010 crash led to new elections in June 2010 where the Flemish winner was a rising right-wing confederalist party NVA with the eventual goal of secession, and the Walloon winner was the socialist party, a party seen as traditionally unitary. Finally, on December 6th 2011 (540 days after the elections) a new government was formed, along with solving the BHV matter. Belgium now holds the world record of "longest government formation".note  The formation gave Belgium Elio Di Rupo of the Francophone Socialist Party as Prime Minister: the first openly gay man to hold the office, the first openly gay male elected head of government, the first openly gay head of government on the European continent (Iceland had chosen a lesbian PM a year or so earlier), the first Francophone PM in Belgium since 1979, and the first Belgian PM who was neither an ethnic Fleming nor an ethnic Walloon (his parents were immigrants from Italy). The state reform that concluded the formation is usually referred to as the "Butterfly Agreement"note  after Di Rupo's memetic bowtie.note 

Tropes associated with Belgium:

  • Belgian Comics
  • Belgian Series
  • Franco-Belgian Comics
  • Belgian Films
  • Flemish TV Stations
  • French Language
  • Irrational Hatred:
    • Played for Laughs in British media, where hating Belgium for no apparent reason has become something of a Running Gag since the phrase "Miserable Fat Belgian Bastards" was uttered.
    • In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978) radio adaptation, the word "Belgium" is the vilest swear word imaginable on every planet in the galaxy and denotes concepts that are indescribably vile, offensive, and unspeakably nasty ...except on Earth. Another reason why Earth is shunned by all right-thinking people.
    • Downplayed in the case of the French where the Belgian stereotype is extremely stupid instead. Most French "blagues belges" share a setup and a punchline with Dumb Blonde jokes.
  • Quirky Neighbour Country: To both The Netherlands and France.
  • Separated by a Common Language: The Dutch spoken in Flanders to the Dutch spoken in the Netherlands; the French spoken in Wallonia (and Brussels to be perfectly fair...) to the French spoken in France.
    • David Suchet, the bilingual actor who is possibly the Hercule Poirot in Poirot, once demonstrated the difference between the way a French person would speak French and the way a Belgian person would speak French - and how it would color their spoken English - in such a clear way that it made the point obvious to even monoglot Brits.
    • French comedy sketch show Vous Les Femmes has a sketch where the two female leads are unconcernedly smoking as they chat. It comes up with the idea that a public health warning on a cigarette packet that might work in France would take the form of Fumer donne l'accent belge'note . Sure enough, the accents of both women change from metropolitan Parisian French to variations of a theme of Belgian French. And both discard their cigarettes, and run out of the room screaming in terror.
    • Belgium has the concept of tussentaal - the movement to bring together the various Flemish dialects, such as Brabantian, Limburgish and East and West Vlaams, and to agree on a single standardised form averaging out the local regional quirks. As with Standard Received English (known as BBC English), it only seems to be used by the national broadcasting corporation VRT and others such as Medialaan. However, some optimists are wondering if it can be extended to Dutch and even Afrikaans as part of a sort of Ur-Nederlands common standard.

Belgium and Belgians in Belgian media

See also: Belgian Media
  • The paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Peter Paul Rubens and René Magritte.
  • The Sarcophagi of the Sixth Continent from the Blake and Mortimer series is set in 1958 and the first part (it's a two-parts story) features the Brussels World’s Fair; the cover has Blake and Mortimer standing near the Atomium while the fair is struck by a chaos.
  • The Smurfs were created by the Belgian Pierre Culliford, a.k.a. Peyo, and became a world hit thanks to the mostly faithful Hanna-Barbera cartoon in The '80s. One episode even had the village tear itself apart over language differences (the North uses "smurf" instead of adjectives, the South uses "smurf" instead of nouns), mirroring the French/Flemish debate.
  • Tintin was created by the Belgian Hergé, and most of the main characters are Belgian, though you'd never suspect it because of the translations' tendency to change just about every name.
  • Other Belgian Comics set in this country: Suske en Wiske, Jommeke, Nero, Urbanus, Piet Pienter en Bert Bibber, Spirou & Fantasio, Gaston Lagaffe, Quick and Flupke...
  • The cult classic Man Bites Dog is set in Belgium.
  • As is Vase de Noces (aka "The Pig-Fucking Movie").
  • Most of Hugo Claus's novels and plays.
  • Cordon (2014) in which the country is ravaged by a viral plague and part of central Antwerp is sealed off after a virus outbreak. As with Salamander, fears about the fragility of Belgium and how easily it could break up along ethnic and language lines are dramatized, this time through the metaphor of a killer plague.
  • Salamander in which a single rogue cop is all that stands between Belgium and destruction. Plays on the fragility of the country as a political and geographical entity.
  • Jacques Brel's songs frequently reference Belgium.

Foreign fictions set in Belgium and/or featuring Belgians

  • A Dog of Flanders (1975) is set in Belgium in a small town near Antwerp.
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz it's revealed that the capital of the Earth Sphere Unified Nation is in Brussels.
  • The 24th Asterix album, Asterix in Belgium, which foreshadows the Flemish-Walloon divide in the antipathies between the different Belgian tribes of Julius Caesar's day in the 1st century BC. The tenth, Asterix the Legionary, features a Belgian legionary whose hairstyle resembles Tintin's and whose name Septantesix (which means "seventy-six") plays on the best-known area of vocabulary difference between Walloon French and the French spoken in France, the words for the numbers between 70 and 99 (the franco-french term translates to "sixty-and-sixteen").
  • The comic strip Zombies That Ate The World features a recurring character who is Belgian called Freddy Merckx, a pun on Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx.
  • Austin Powers uses Belgians as targets of mockery, making them, among other things, the ones who raised Dr. Evil to be so... evil.
  • Battle of the Bulge is a 1965 film about a WWII battle that happened in Belgium.
  • In Bruges is a film about two Irish hitmen hiding out in Bruges, a nice city in Belgium.
  • In The Legend of Tarzan, the Big Bad (played by Christoph Waltz) is Léon Rom, a Belgian officer in the Congo Free State.
  • Parts of The Monuments Men happen in Belgium. The film focuses on the cases of two artworks stolen by the Nazis in Belgium: Michelangelo's Madonna of Bruges and Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece.
  • Resistance... A love story set against a background of the Belgian Resistance in WWII, starring Bill Paxton and Julia Ormond and based on a novel by Anita Shreve. In its day the most expensive Dutch movie ever made, and such a flop it bankrupted the studio.
  • Any story set during the Battle of Waterloo, including the film Waterloo.
  • Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot is an eccentric Belgian. Somewhat ironically in light of the link on famous Belgians on this page, she reportedly made this choice because she wanted to use a francophone character without having to deal with interferences from existing national stereotypes - and Belgium was pretty much seen as a 'blank slate' back then.
  • The protagonist's love interest in Frederik Pohl's Heechee Saga is Belgian.
  • Belgium, or a Discworld take thereof, is even beginning to appear in fanfic. A.A. Pessimal reasoned that the Sto Plains states reflect the three Benelux countries of Europe. Any nation with "brussels sprouts" as its principal cash crop must by inference be an up to eleven Belgium. if Sto Helit is a Grand Duchy (Luxembourg) and Sto Kerrig is an up to eleven Holland, that only leaves neighbouring Sto Lat. In The King of Swords, the illogic of the stories dictates that an "Afrikaaner" working in Ankh-Morpork must take on a nanny for her newborn daughter who speaks a recognisable language, so the child has a fighting chance of growing up speaking something other than "Morporkian" (English). She gets Annaliese from the border region between two of the Stos, who speaks, er, "Phlegmish" and knows all about Brussels Sprouts. Ongoing fun is had with how native speakers of "Vondalaans", "Kerrigian" and "Phlegmish"note  preceive each other's languages. Later tales introduce a region called Les Pays des Wallées, which owing to historical accident prefers to speak Quirmian. The Phleghms and the Wallées view each other with thinly-disguised suspicion tinged with hostility.
  • A short arc in Chuck's fourth season involved a Belgian crime lord named....The Belgian.
  • The opening of the JAG episode "A Girl's Best Friend" starts with Jewish diamond dealers in Antwerp.
  • In Monty Python's Flying Circus, there's a sketch called "Prejudice", which features a TV show that's about insulting all kinds of minorities. The host announces the results of a competition where the audience was asked to find a derogatory term for the Belgians. The winning entries are in order: the Sprouts, the Phlegms and Miserable Fat Belgian Bastards.
  • Secret Army
  • The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine two-parter "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost" is kicked off with the bombing of a Federation-Romulan conference being held in Antwerp. Because a Changeling is discovered on the scene in video footage, the Dominion is held responsible, leading Admiral Leyton to try to bring The Federation under martial law.
  • Famously, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the word "Belgium" is considered the most obscene profanity in the universe on every planet except Earth. There's even an award for the most gratuitous use of the term on film. note 
  • Philippe Loren, the Big Bad or so are the players led to believe at first of Saints Row: The Third is a Belgian crime lord. Just like Hercule Poirot, he speaks in a thick French accent (although his english is otherwise flawless) and being mistaken for French is kind of a Berserk Button for him.
  • Wing Commander features Jeannette Devereaux, aka "Angel", who was born in Belgium.
  • In Hetalia: Axis Powers Belgium is a Cool Big Sis with a Cat Smile and has two siblings, Netherlands and Luxembourg.
  • Not Quite Daily Comic is set in (a World of Weirdness version of) Belgium. There's even an episode about Gueuze.
  • Belgium is depicted in Scandinavia and the World as a comics nerd with a sweet tooth.
  • Polandball features Belgium as an anthropomorphic... ball. He's often depicted as an Abusive Parent to the Congo and has a rather unhealthy obsession with chopping off hands which he picked up during King Leopold II's rule.
  • C14 Dating happens during the eight weeks a young woman from California is spending in an archeological dig site in Belgium.
  • A Dog of Flanders is set there, near Antwerp.
  • The Nun's Story tells the story of a Belgian nun. Most of the film is set in Belgium, though the central portion is set in the Belgian Congo.


The Belgian flag https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/belgium_flag_3349.png
The flag's black, yellow and red colors derive from those of the Duchy of Brabant, the territory of which included the major cities of Brussels and Antwerp. The colors are also used in the flags of Flanders (black lion on yellow field) and Wallonia (red rooster on yellow field).

The Belgian anthem

Noble Belgique, ô mère chérie,
À toi nos cœurs, à toi nos bras,
À toi notre sang, ô Patrie!
Nous le jurons tous, tu vivras!
Tu vivras toujours grande et belle
Et ton invincible unité
Le Roi, la Loi, la Liberté!
Aura pour devise immortelle:
Le Roi, la Loi, la Liberté!
Le Roi, la Loi, la Liberté!
Le Roi, la Loi, la Liberté!

Noble Belgium; O, mother dear;
To you we stretch our hearts and arms,
With blood to spill for you, O fatherland!
We swear with one cry, you shall live!
You shall live, so great and beautiful,
And your invincible unity
The King, the Law, the Liberty!
Shall have for device immortal:
The King, the Law, the Liberty!
The King, the Law, the Liberty!
The King, the Law, the Liberty!

O dierbaar België, O heilig land der Vaad'ren,
Onze ziel en ons hart zijn u gewijd.
Aanvaard ons kracht en het bloed van onze ad'ren,
Wees ons doel in arbeid en in strijd.
Bloei, o land, in eendracht niet te breken;
Wees immer uzelf en ongeknecht,
Voor Vorst, voor Vrijheid en voor Recht!
Het woord getrouw, dat g' onbevreesd moogt spreken,
Voor Vorst, voor Vrijheid en voor Recht!
Voor Vorst, voor Vrijheid en voor Recht!
Voor Vorst, voor Vrijheid en voor Recht!

O dear Belgium; O, holy land of the fathers,
Our soul and our heart are devoted to you!
Accept our strength and the blood in our veins,
Be our goal, in work and struggle.
Prosper, O land, in unbreakable unity;
Always be yourself and serve no other,
For King, for Freedom and for Law!
Faithful to the word that you may speak boldly,
For King, for Freedom and for Law!
For King, for Freedom and for Law!
For King, for Freedom and for Law!

O liebes Land, o Belgiens Erde,
Dir unser Herz, Dir unsere Hand,
Dir unser Blut, o Heimaterde,
wir schwören's Dir, o Vaterland!
So blühe froh in voller Schöne,
zu der die Freiheit Dich erzog,
Gesetz und König und die Freiheit hoch!
und fortan singen Deine Söhne:
Gesetz und König und die Freiheit hoch!
Gesetz und König und die Freiheit hoch!
Gesetz und König und die Freiheit hoch!

O, dear country; O, Belgium's soil;
To you our heart, to you our hands,
To you our blood; O, native land,
We swear to you; O, fatherland!
So gladly bloom in beauty full,
Into what freedom has taught you to be,
To Law and King and Freedom, hail!
And evermore shall sing your sons:
To Law and King and Freedom, hail!
To Law and King and Freedom, hail!
To Law and King and Freedom, hail!

Government
  • Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy
    • Monarch: Philippe
    • Prime Minister: Alexander De Croo

Miscellaneous
  • Capital and largest city: Brussels (French: Bruxelles, Dutch: Brussel)
  • Population: 11,492,641
  • Area: 30,689 km
(11,849 sq mi) (136th)
  • Currency: Euro (€) (EUR)
  • ISO-3166-1 Code: BE
  • Country calling code: 32
  • Highest point: Signal de Botrange (694 m/2,277 ft) (174th)
  • Lowest point: De Moeren (−4 m/−13 ft) (29th)

Top