Belgium
The compact, bilingual capital of the European project
Belgium is a small, densely populated country at the heart of Western Europe, a federal kingdom of about 11.8 million split between Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north and French-speaking Wallonia in the south. Its capital, Brussels, doubles as the unofficial capital of the European Union, hosting the European Commission, Council, and Parliament, as well as NATO headquarters. For its modest size, Belgium has had an outsized impact, on art, from the Flemish Primitives to surrealism, on cuisine, from waffles and chocolate to a national obsession with beer and fries, and on European politics.
The land rises gently from a flat, reclaimed North Sea coast and the polders of the northwest, across the central Flemish and Brabant plains, to the forested Ardennes hills in the southeast, where the highest point, the Signal de Botrange, reaches just 694 meters. The Scheldt and Meuse rivers drain the country toward the sea, and the port of Antwerp ranks among Europe's largest. A temperate maritime climate brings frequent rain. The economy is heavily industrialized and trade-dependent, strong in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, machinery, diamonds, and a vast logistics sector.
Long fought over by larger powers, the Low Countries passed through Burgundian, Spanish, Austrian, French, and Dutch hands before Belgium won independence in 1830 as a neutral constitutional monarchy. It industrialized early and built a brutal colonial empire in the Congo, a dark chapter still reckoned with today. Twice devastated as a battlefield in the World Wars, Belgium became a founding member of the European communities and a champion of integration. Its enduring tension between Flemish and Walloon communities has produced one of the world's most decentralized federal systems.