BELGIUM

Belgium covers an area of 30,528 square kilometers (11,787 square miles) and has a population of about 10.5 million. Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium's two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north, with 58% of the population, and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia, inhabited by 32%. The Brussels-Capital Region, although officially bilingual, is a mostly French-speaking enclave within the Flemish and near the Walloon Region, and has 10% of the population. A small German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the political history and a complex system of government.

MISSIONARIES:

Taylor, Chris & Becky

HISTORY:

The area of present-day Belgium has seen significant demographic, political and cultural upheavals over the course of two millennia. The Eighty Years' War (1568 - 1648) divided the area into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and comprised most of modern Belgium.

The 1830 Belgian Revolution led to the establishment of an independent, Catholic, and neutral Belgium under a provisional government and a national congress. however, it was not until 1967 that an official Dutch version of the Constitution was accepted.

Germany invaded Belgium in 1914, and much of the Western Front fighting of World War I occurred in western parts of the country. Belgium was again invaded by Germany in 1940 during the Blitzkrieg offensive, and occupied until its liberation by Allied troops in the winter of 1944 - 1945. The Belgian Congo gained independence in 1960 during the Congo Crisis; Ruanda-Urundi followed two years later.

After World War II, Belgium joined NATO as a founder member, headquartered at Brussels, and formed the Benelux group of nations with the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Belgium became one of the six founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951,and of the 1957 established European Atomic Energy Community and European Economic Community. The latter is now the European Union, for which Belgium hosts major administrations and institutions, including the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the extraordinary and committee sessions of the European Parliament.

RELIGION:

Symbolically and materially, the Roman Catholic Church remains in a favorable position. Belgium's concept of 'recognized religions' set a path for Islam to follow to acquire the treatment of Jewish and Protestant religions. While other minority religions, such as Hinduism, do not yet have such status, Buddhism took the first steps toward legal recognition in 2007. According to the 2001 Survey and Study of Religion, about 47% of the population identify themselves as belonging to the Catholic Church, while Islam is the second-largest religion at 3.5%.