Belgium

The Kingdom of Belgium is a country in northwest Europe bordered by the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and France and is one of the founding and core members of the European Union. Belgium has a population of over eleven million people, in an area of around 30,000 square kilometres (11,700 square miles). Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Romance Europe, it is linguistically divided. Mainly two languages are spoken in Belgium: Dutch is spoken by the 6.1 million people in Flanders to the north, French by the 3.5 million Walloons in the south. The capital, Brussels, is officially bilingual, while the majority of its residents speak French. Around 75,000 people live in the German-speaking Community in the east of the country. This linguistic diversity often leads to political and cultural conflict and is reflected in Belgium's complex system of government and political history.