About Belgium > History

No less a tyrant than Julius Caesar declared that the Belgians to be a stiff-necked people who resisted colonization. The Spanish, the French, the Austrians and the Dutch would one by one fall before the indomitable will of the Flemish people. By the 13th century, Ghent had become the second largest city in northern Europe, and the world’s first stock exchange was created in Bruges.

The Burgundians ushered in a golden age in which the genius of Erasmus was nurtured by a newly founded university in Louvain, artist Paul Rubens produced paintings of unsurpassed technical skill, and vast fortunes poured through the port of Antwerp.

The principality of Liege, which covered the largest part of southern Belgium, was an independent state under the umbrella of the German Saint Empire. But Wallonia has been occupied by man since the Stone Age, thanks to its many natural caves.

Among its prodigal sons, Wallonia counts the musician César Franck, the physician Zénobe Gramme, and the writer Georges Simenon, creator of the immortal Maigret.

Other famous personalities of the country are the painters Brueghel and Van Dyck for the Flemish school, Magritte and Delvaux for the Surrealism trend, and the architect Victor Horta who invented the Art Nouveau style.

Historically, Belgium was used as the battlefield of Europe, since it was in the heart of the continent, between the former French, British and German empires. In 1830, the Belgians started their own revolution against Dutch occupation and became independent as a constitutional and hereditary monarchy.

Now its territory is divided into provinces and municipalities. There are three major communities and three regions: Wallonia, Flanders and Brussels. These new institutions have received enormous power from the federal government and have their own legislative and executive bodies.