60 Fun Facts About Belgium

Belgium sits in a coastal lowland part of Europe known as what?

The Netherlands and Luxembourg share the label; together the three are the Benelux.

How many nations share a land border with Belgium?

The Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and France; the North Sea takes the fifth side.

Which language is spoken by the Flemish Community, roughly 60 percent of Belgians?

About 40 percent speak French and around one percent German, and the split runs through everything from politics to universities.

What is the northern, Dutch-speaking region of Belgium called?

Wallonia is the French-speaking south; the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region sits between them.

In which year did the Belgian Revolution create an independent Belgium?

The new state broke away from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands set up at the Congress of Vienna.

Belgium's National Day, 21 July, marks the 1831 installation of which first king?

He was a German prince, uncle of Britain's Queen Victoria.

Which Belgian king held the Congo Free State as his private possession from 1885?

International outrage at the brutality of the rubber and ivory regime forced the Belgian state to take the colony over in 1908.

Belgium set a world record by going how many days without a government after the 2010 election?

The country's six governments and language politics make coalition-building notoriously slow.

Which nickname did centuries of foreign wars earn Belgium?

Both world wars, and Waterloo before them, reinforced the label.

What is Belgium's highest point, at 694 metres?

It sits on the High Fens plateau in the Ardennes, near the German border.

Which forested upland region covers southeastern Belgium?

Its hills and gorges hosted the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944-45.

Belgium was the first country on continental Europe to do what in the early 19th century?

Coal, iron and steel around Liège and Charleroi made it one of the three most industrialised nations from 1830 to 1910.

What was Belgium's currency before the euro?

It ran from 1832 until 2002.

Which Belgian city's port ranks second in Europe, behind Rotterdam?

The Scheldt links the city to the North Sea; it also has one of Europe's largest Jewish communities and a famous diamond trade.

Which medieval Belgian city's UNESCO-listed centre hosts the Procession of the Holy Blood?

Its silted-up outlet, the Zwin, is why trade shifted to Antwerp in the 15th century.

Which 15th-century polyptych, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, hangs in St. Bavo's Cathedral?

Also called the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, it is by the van Eyck brothers and has been stolen, in part, more than once.

Which Brussels landmark, built for Expo 58, is an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times?

Its nine steel spheres stand 102 metres tall; the name blends 'atom' and 'aluminium'.

Manneken Pis, the famous Brussels fountain, depicts what?

The bronze is only 55.5 cm tall and has been stolen several times, once being smashed into eleven pieces.

Roughly how many costumes does Manneken Pis have in his wardrobe?

They have had their own museum, GardeRobe MannekenPis, since 2017.

Which country's forces largely destroyed the Grand-Place in Brussels in a 1695 bombardment?

Only the Town Hall's tower, which the gunners were aiming at, survived; the square was rebuilt within four years and is now a UNESCO site.

Which battle of 18 June 1815, fought south of Brussels, ended Napoleon's rule?

At the time the site lay in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands; Belgium did not yet exist.

Which Belgian invented the saxophone, patenting it in 1846?

Born in Dinant, he survived falling down three flights of stairs and drinking vitriol as a child.

Which Belgian cartoonist created The Adventures of Tintin in 1929?

His pen name is the French pronunciation of his reversed initials, R.G., for Georges Remi.

Hergé's pen name comes from reversing the initials of his real name. What was it?

R.G. pronounced in French gives 'air-zhay'.

Which Belgian comic artist created the Smurfs in 1958?

His real name was Pierre Culliford; the Smurfs first appeared as side characters in his Johan and Peewit series.

According to Peyo, 'schtroumpf' was coined at a meal when he couldn't recall what word?

He asked fellow cartoonist André Franquin to pass the 'schtroumpf', and a language was born.

Which Belgian surrealist painted The Treachery of Images, a pipe captioned 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe'?

Born in Lessines in 1898, he became a major influence on pop art, a link he himself dismissed.

Which Belgian priest-physicist first argued receding galaxies mean an expanding universe?

He was ordained in 1923 and taught at Louvain until 1964, with a cardinal's blessing for his science.

Which Belgian chemist gave his name to a plastic he developed in 1907-09?

Bakelite was the first fully synthetic plastic.

Which 16th-century Flemish cartographer's name lives on in a famous map projection?

His contemporary Vesalius, the anatomist, was also Belgian-born.

Which Hollywood legend was born in the Brussels district of Ixelles in 1929?

She spent the war years in the Netherlands before Roman Holiday made her a star.

Which action star known as 'the Muscles from Brussels' was born with the surname Van Varenberg?

His father is from Brussels and his mother is Flemish.

Which Belgian singer, born in Schaerbeek in 1929, became a giant of French chanson?

He came from a Flemish family that had adopted French, and retired from touring in 1966 at the height of his fame.

The Brussels-born singer Stromae, real name Paul Van Haver, has a father from which country?

His father, an architect, was a Tutsi who was rarely present; his mother is Flemish.

Which Belgian cyclist, nicknamed 'the Cannibal', holds a record eleven Grand Tour wins?

He took 525 professional wins and an unequalled eleven Grand Tours.

Where did the cyclist's nickname 'the Cannibal' come from?

She suggested it after hearing her father complain that Merckx never let anyone else win.

What is the nickname of Belgium's national football team?

They earned it in 1906 because of their red jerseys, and won Olympic gold as hosts in Antwerp in 1920.

Which Belgian city hosted the 1920 Summer Olympics?

The home football team won the gold medal there.

Which Belgian circuit hosts the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix?

Belgian driver Jacky Ickx won eight Grands Prix and six 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Which unranked Belgian won the 2009 US Open three tournaments after coming out of retirement?

She had quit at 23 to marry and have a daughter, and returned two years later.

Which Belgian city is home to the world's largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev?

The country produces over 1,100 varieties of beer.

How many of the eleven breweries allowed to brew Trappist beer are in Belgium?

Traditionally each abbey's ale is served in its own distinctively shaped glass.

The Trappist beer of which abbey has repeatedly been rated the best in the world?

Its monks sell it only at the abbey gate, which is part of the mystique.

Which of these is one of Belgium's two national dishes?

The other is steak and fries; all three distractors are Belgian too, just not national dishes.

Waterzooi, a classic of Ghent, is what kind of dish?

Carbonnade is the beer stew, and speculoos the biscuit.

Which Belgian chocolatier introduced the filled praline in 1912?

His wife designed the ballotin gift box three years later.

The Biscoff brand of caramelised speculoos biscuits gets its name from combining which two words?

Lotus Bakeries markets it as the biscuit to eat with your coffee.

Belgian waffles were introduced to the United States at a fair in which city in 1962?

They took off two years later at the New York World's Fair, served with whipped cream and strawberries.

Which Belgian food historian concluded that fries are actually of French origin?

He traced them to 19th-century Paris; a Bavarian musician carried the recipe to Belgium in the 1840s.

On which date do Belgian children put out shoes for Saint Nicholas?

He arrives that night for his 6 December feast day, leaving presents and feeding his horse or donkey a carrot.

The Carnival of Binche is famous for costumed men in plumed hats called what?

UNESCO lists the three-day pre-Lent carnival as a masterpiece of intangible heritage.

Which international military alliance has its headquarters in Brussels?

Belgium was a founding member in 1949; the city also hosts the European Commission and Council.

Belgium is one of how many founding members of the European Union?

With France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Which king was forced to abdicate in 1951 over suspicions of wartime collaboration?

A general strike pushed him out in favour of his son Baudouin.

Julius Caesar described which ancient people of the region as the bravest of the Gauls?

The name survives in the modern country; Rome annexed the area in the mid first century BC.

Which annual UCI cycling classic runs through the hills of southeastern Belgium?

Belgians hold more Tour wins than any nation except the host country.

Which Belgian poet and playwright won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911?

Simenon, creator of Maigret, is Belgium's best-selling novelist but never won the Nobel.

Which cowboy comic strip was created by the Belgian artist Morris?

Belgian strips also gave the world Gaston Lagaffe and Suske en Wiske.

Which Belgian jazz musician, famed for harmonica and whistling, ranks with Django Reinhardt as a global star?

Django Reinhardt, the Romani guitar genius, was born in Belgium too.

Which former German colonies did the League of Nations mandate to Belgium in 1924?

Belgium had taken control of the territory, today's Rwanda and Burundi, during the First World War.