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- Location Western Europe, bordering the North Sea, between France and the Netherlands North America, bordering both the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Pacific Ocean, between Canada and Mexico Geographic coordinates 50 50 N, 4 00 E 38 00 N, 97 00 W
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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.
Oct 23, 2024 · The country has now prospered for several decades as a modern, technologically advanced European state and member of NATO and the EU. As the host country of the EU and NATO headquarters, Belgium plays an important role in European and Transatlantic diplomacy. Read more about U.S.-Belgium Relations.
- Overview
- Land
- Relief, drainage, and soils
Belgium, country of northwestern Europe. It is one of the smallest and most densely populated European countries, and it has been, since its independence in 1830, a representative democracy headed by a hereditary constitutional monarch. Initially, Belgium had a unitary form of government. In the 1980s and ’90s, however, steps were taken to turn Belgium into a federal state with powers shared among the regions of Flanders, Wallonia, and the Brussels-Capital Region.
Culturally, Belgium is a heterogeneous country straddling the border between the Romance and Germanic language families of western Europe. With the exception of a small German-speaking population in the eastern part of the country, Belgium is divided between a French-speaking people, collectively called Walloons (approximately one-third of the total population), who are concentrated in the five southern provinces (Hainaut, Namur, Liège, Walloon Brabant, and Luxembourg), and Flemings, a Flemish- (Dutch-) speaking people (more than one-half of the total population), who are concentrated in the five northern and northeastern provinces (West Flanders, East Flanders [West-Vlaanderen, Oost-Vlaanderen], Flemish Brabant, Antwerp, and Limburg). Just north of the boundary between Walloon Brabant (Brabant Walloon) and Flemish (Vlaams) Brabant lies the officially bilingual but majority French-speaking Brussels-Capital Region, with approximately one-tenth of the total population. (See also Fleming and Walloon.)
The country has a total of 860 miles (1,385 km) of land boundaries with neighbours; it is bounded by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, and France to the south. Belgium also has some 40 miles (60 km) of shoreline on the North Sea.
Britannica Quiz
Belgium generally is a low-lying country, with a broad coastal plain extending in a southeasterly direction from the North Sea and the Netherlands and rising gradually into the Ardennes hills and forests of the southeast, where a maximum elevation of 2,277 feet (694 metres) is reached at Botrange.
The main physical regions are the Ardennes and the Ardennes foothills; Côtes Lorraines (Belgian Lorraine), the intrusion of the Paris Basin in the south; and the Anglo-Belgian Basin in the north, comprising the Central Plateaus, the plain of Flanders, and the Kempenland (French: Campine).
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The Ardennes region is part of the Hercynian orogenic belt of mountain ranges, which reaches from western Ireland into Germany and was formed roughly 300 to 400 million years ago, during the Paleozoic Era. The Ardennes is a plateau cut deeply by the Meuse River and its tributaries. Its higher points contain peat bogs and have poor drainage; these uplands are unsuitable as cropland.
A large depression, known east of the Meuse River as the Famenne and west of it as the Fagne, separates the Ardennes from the geologically and topographically complex foothills to the north. The principal feature of the area is the Condroz, a plateau more than 1,100 feet (335 metres) in elevation comprising a succession of valleys hollowed out of the limestone between sandstone crests. Its northern boundary is the Sambre-Meuse valley, which traverses Belgium from south-southwest to northeast.
United States. Location. Western Europe, bordering the North Sea, between France and the Netherlands. North America, bordering both the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Pacific Ocean, between Canada and Mexico. Geographic coordinates. 50 50 N, 4 00 E. 38 00 N, 97 00 W. Map references.
Oct 23, 2024 · Geography. Location. Western Europe, bordering the North Sea, between France and the Netherlands. Geographic coordinates. 50 50 N, 4 00 E. Map references. Europe. Area. total : 30,528 sq km. land: 30,278 sq km. water: 250 sq km. comparison ranking: total 140. Area - comparative. about the size of Maryland. Area comparison map: Land boundaries.
Apr 3, 2024 · The United States is Belgium’s largest foreign investor outside of the EU, with more than 900 U.S. businesses employing nearly 130,000 people in Belgium. Belgium is the fourteenth-largest source of foreign direct investment in the United States, with $71 billion in total stock.
Oct 6, 2020 · As an outward-looking nation, Belgium works closely with the United States bilaterally and in international and regional organizations to encourage economic and political cooperation and assistance to developing countries.
