An overview of Belgium

(from the www.xpats.com web site)
For many vacationers, Belgium has long been one of those countries which simply had to be travelled through in order to get from here to there. With major cities like Amsterdam, London and Paris close-by, it seems easy to forget that Belgium is a tourist destination of its own right - and an important hub of international business.

Belgium is nestled between neighboring countries Germany and Luxembourg (east), the Netherlands (north), France (south) and Great Britain, just a channel's hop across the North Sea which forms the northwestern border to the country. With such a central location, it is no wonder that both historically and in modern times, this "crossroads of Europe" - for better or for worse - has often found itself in the middle of everything.

Belgium is officially tri-lingual. Dutch (Flemish) is spoken in the northern region of Flanders, and the Flemings account for 58 percent of the Belgian population. French is spoken in the southern region of Wallonia, and the Walloons who live there account for 33 percent of the Belgian population of which one percent represents the population of the German community, a small area of Belgium located close to the German border. The remaining 9 percent is living in Brussels.

Brussels is Belgium's main city and is officially bi-lingual. In reality, about 80 percent of Brussels' inhabitants speak French. In practice, one finds that this city of roughly 1 million people is a multilingual macedoine of languages and peoples. 30 percent of the city's population is non-Belgian! So English will get you far these days, as long as you demonstrate a sincere willingness to communicate in French or Dutch when possible.