60 Fun Facts About Belgium

Long before the word Benelux, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were together known as what?

The Low Countries. The name means the same as 'Netherlands', lower lands, and the three were last united under one crown from 1815 until Belgium broke away in 1830.

Belgium's one short stretch of coast faces which sea?

The North Sea. One tram line, the Kusttram, follows the Belgian shore for 67 km, from near the French border almost to the Netherlands, so a single ride takes in nearly the whole coast.

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

Dutch is the majority language, yet Belgium was long run in French: only the Equality Law of 1898 put it on a par with French as an official language.

Which region covers the mainly French-speaking southern half of Belgium?

Wallonia was long Belgium's powerhouse, its coal mines and steel mills strung along the Sambre and Meuse valleys, but when the coal ran out in the later 20th century, Flanders overtook it.

What had a Brussels audience just watched when it joined Belgium's 1830 revolution?

An opera: theatregoers streamed out of Auber's La Muette de Portici, the tale of a revolt in Naples, to join rioters in the streets, and Belgium declared its independence within weeks.

Belgium's National Day, 21 July, marks the day in 1831 that which king took his oath?

Leopold I, a prince of Saxe-Coburg and uncle of Queen Victoria, had turned down the crown of Greece the year before the Belgians offered him theirs.

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

Leopold II ran the Congo Free State as a personal fiefdom from 1885; international outrage at the brutal rubber regime forced Belgium to annex it as a colony in 1908.

What kept Belgium without a new government for 541 days in 2010–11?

Rival language blocs: parties from the two main language communities stayed deadlocked so long that the outgoing cabinet ran the country as caretaker throughout, and Belgium took Cambodia's record for the longest such wait.

Under which Belgian town's Menin Gate do buglers sound the Last Post every evening for the First World War missing?

Ypres has heard it under the Menin Gate every night since the late 1920s, except during the wartime occupation: it resumed on the very evening in 1944 that Polish troops freed the town.

Belgium's highest point, Signal de Botrange, rises close to the border with which country?

Germany held the hill until the Treaty of Versailles moved the border, so Botrange replaced nearby Baraque Michel as the summit; in 1923 a six-metre mound was added to lift its 694 metres to a round 700.

Which forested upland region covers southeastern Belgium?

The Ardennes were long judged too difficult for a big offensive, which is exactly why the tanks came through them: in 1940 and again in December 1944, in the Battle of the Bulge.

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

Industrialise: the know-how came from Britain with William Cockerill, an English mechanic who began building wool-spinning machines at Verviers in 1799, and whose son John founded the Seraing ironworks.

What was Belgium's currency before the euro?

The Belgian franc replaced the guilder in 1832, as the newly independent kingdom dropped its old ruler's money for a coin equal in value to the French one.

Which Belgian port's river, the Scheldt, was closed to sea trade for two centuries?

Antwerp was a great trading city until the breakaway provinces that held the river's mouth shut the Scheldt after 1585; its merchants and money moved to Amsterdam, and the river reopened only in the 1790s.

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

Bruges parades a phial said to hold Christ's blood each Ascension Day; tradition says a crusader carried it home in the 12th century, though it may really have reached the city after the sack of Constantinople in 1204.

Which painter completed the Ghent Altarpiece, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, in 1432?

Jan van Eyck's masterpiece is reckoned the most stolen artwork in history: soldiers carried panels off to the Louvre, the Nazis later seized it, and one panel stolen in 1934, the Just Judges, has never been returned.

Which Brussels landmark was built as the centrepiece of the 1958 World's Fair?

The Atomium models an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times; engineer André Waterkeyn designed its nine linked steel spheres to show off Belgian metalworking skill in the atomic age.

The Manneken Pis on its Brussels street corner is a 1965 copy; where is the 1619 original kept?

The city museum, housed in the Maison du Roi on the Grand-Place, took the little bronze in for safekeeping after it had been stolen or damaged again and again over the centuries.

Manneken Pis gained a squatting sister in Brussels in 1987 and later a third peeing statue of which animal?

A dog: Zinneke Pis, a bronze mutt lifting its leg against a street post, completed the family; when a car hit it in 2015, its sculptor mended it and put it back.

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

France's guns, sent by Louis XIV, wrecked the square in three days in 1695, yet the Town Hall tower they had used as their aiming mark stayed standing, and the rest was swiftly rebuilt.

Which 1815 battlefield south of Brussels is crowned by the Lion's Mound, built where a prince was reportedly wounded?

Waterloo was reshaped by one of its victors: the king of the Netherlands, father of the wounded prince, had the earth for the mound stripped from the very ridge Wellington had defended.

Which Dinant-born instrument maker patented a new single-reed instrument made of brass in 1846?

Adolphe Sax, born in Dinant in 1814, patented the saxophone in 1846; French military bands adopted it decades before jazz made it famous.

Which Belgian cartoonist created The Adventures of Tintin in 1929?

Hergé was the pen name of Georges Remi, his initials reversed to R.G. and spoken in French; his boy reporter first ran in the children's supplement of a Brussels newspaper.

Which Belgian comics magazine, launched by Dupuis in 1938, is named after its hero, a red-uniformed hotel bellhop?

Spirou kept his red bellhop uniform long after the strip dropped his hotel job; the weekly's home town also named the 'Marcinelle school', the lively, rounded style of its artists.

Which fictional detective is a retired Belgian police officer who came to England as a First World War refugee?

Hercule Poirot was inspired by the Belgian refugees living in Agatha Christie's home town of Torquay in 1914; when she finally killed him off in 1975, The New York Times ran his obituary on its front page.

Which Belgian cartoon characters got their name when their creator blanked on the word 'salt' at dinner?

The Smurfs: by Peyo's account, he asked André Franquin to pass 'the schtroumpf', his friend answered in kind, and the nonsense word later named the little blue extras he added to a medieval strip in 1958.

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

René Magritte painted it like an advertisement to make one point: the image of a pipe is not a pipe, so the caption tells the truth; the canvas now hangs in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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

Georges Lemaître published the idea in 1927, two years before Edwin Hubble's measurements made it famous, and in 2018 astronomers voted to rename Hubble's law the Hubble–Lemaître law.

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

Leo Baekeland, born in Ghent in 1863, invented Bakelite, the first fully synthetic plastic, in 1907 after earlier making a fortune selling his Velox photographic paper to Kodak.

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

Gerardus Mercator, born in Rupelmonde in 1512, published his cylindrical world map in 1569; the Mercator projection keeps compass bearings straight, which made it a navigators' standard.

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

Audrey Hepburn spent the war in the occupied Netherlands and was among the children given food and medical relief afterwards, a gratitude she spoke of as a UNICEF ambassador in her last years.

Which action-film star is nicknamed 'the Muscles from Brussels'?

Jean-Claude Van Damme was a teenage karate champion in Brussels before Bloodsport made his name; in 2013 he did his trademark splits between two moving lorries for a Volvo advert.

Which Belgian singer-songwriter gave French chanson its classic 'Ne me quitte pas'?

Jacques Brel announced in 1966 that he was quitting the stage at the height of his fame; he bought a yacht, settled in the Marquesas and lies there a few yards from Paul Gauguin.

Which Brussels singer took Europe by storm with the French-language dance hit 'Alors on danse'?

Stromae is 'maestro' flipped in the back-to-front French slang called verlan; he followed the hit with 'Papaoutai', a chart-topper about growing up without the father he barely knew.

Which Belgian cyclist, nicknamed 'the Cannibal', won eleven Grand Tours between 1968 and 1974?

Eddy Merckx owed the nickname to a twelve-year-old: when former teammate Christian Raymond remarked that Merckx would not let anyone else win, his daughter called him a cannibal.

Which Flemish Baroque painter doubled as a diplomat and was knighted in London for brokering peace between Spain and England?

Peter Paul Rubens spent months in Madrid and London arguing for the 1630 peace treaty, copying Titians and taking commissions as he went; Charles I knighted him and ordered a ceiling for the Banqueting House.

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

The Red Devils have carried the name since 1906, for their red shirts; their Olympic gold at home in 1920 came when Czechoslovakia walked off the pitch in protest at the referee.

Which Belgian won the 2022 UCI road race world championship in Wollongong?

Remco Evenepoel was a youth footballer for Anderlecht, PSV and Belgium until he switched to cycling in 2017; five years later he took the Vuelta and this world title a fortnight apart.

Which Belgian circuit hosts the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix?

Spa-Francorchamps began in 1921 as a 15-kilometre loop of public roads, feared for its speed and sudden rain; a 1979 rebuild halved it into the 7-kilometre lap raced today.

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

Kim Clijsters, who had retired in 2007 to marry and have her daughter Jada, won the 2009 US Open as an unranked wildcard, the first mother to win a major since 1980.

Which Belgian city, the home of Stella Artois, houses the headquarters of the brewing giant AB InBev?

Leuven is where Sébastien Artois bought a brewery in 1717 and gave it his name; its Stella, launched in 1926 as a Christmas beer and named for the star, became the flagship of the giant based there.

Which Belgian beer style is made by spontaneous fermentation with wild yeasts around Brussels?

Lambic is brewed in the Senne valley around Brussels by exposing the cooling wort to wild airborne yeasts; blending old and young lambic gives gueuze, and adding cherries gives kriek.

Westvleteren 12, more than once ranked the world's best beer by RateBeer, is brewed in small batches by whom?

Trappist monks at Saint Sixtus Abbey brew only enough to keep the monastery going; when the ranking made it famous, cars queued at the gate before dawn, and buyers were rationed to two cases each.

Which shellfish is steamed and served with fries in a dish often called Belgium's national dish?

Mussels: moules-frites is steamed with celery in wine or beer, yet much of the star ingredient is imported, farmed just over the border in Zeeland, in the Netherlands.

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

Waterzooi is a creamy chicken or fish broth: the Ghent original used freshwater fish, but chicken versions thickened with cream and egg yolk became the everyday form.

In 1912 the Brussels chocolatier Jean Neuhaus invented the filled chocolate that Belgians call what?

A praline: the soft-centred chocolates kept getting crushed in paper cones, so in 1915 his wife, Louise Agostini, designed the ballotin, the little box Belgian chocolates still come in.

Biscoff is the export name of which caramelised Belgian biscuit, traditionally spiced with cinnamon?

Speculoos: Lotus Bakeries wrapped its biscuits singly for cafés to serve beside a cup, coined 'Biscoff' from biscuit and coffee for export in 1986, and reached America as an airline snack.

New York's 1964 World's Fair made Belgian waffles famous, but which city's fair had sold them two years earlier?

Seattle's 1962 fair saw Walter Cleyman sell half a million 'Brussels waffles'; in New York the Vermersch family renamed theirs 'Bel-Gem' after noticing how few Americans could place Brussels.

Belgium claims the fry as its own, but a Belgian food historian traced the first street sellers to which city?

Paris: Pierre Leclercq found fries born as street food there, and says a Bavarian fairground musician, Frédéric Krieger, learned the trade at a Paris roaster and took it round Belgium's fairs from 1844 as 'Fritz'.

Which gift-bringer fills Belgian children's shoes on the night before 6 December?

Saint Nicholas, known locally as Sinterklaas, arrives by steamboat from Spain and rides a white horse in the story; colonists carried the name to New York, where it wore down into 'Santa Claus'.

At Belgium's Carnival of Binche, the masked dancers called Gilles shower the crowd with which fruit on Shrove Tuesday?

Oranges: from dawn the Gilles dance in wax masks, shaking bundles of twigs to drive off evil spirits, and in the afternoon they put on ostrich-plume hats and toss blood oranges to the crowd.

Which organisation moved its headquarters to Brussels in 1967 after falling out with Charles de Gaulle?

NATO had to pack up after de Gaulle pulled his forces out of its military command in 1966 and asked every Allied headquarters to leave; Belgium took in both the alliance and its military command.

The 1957 treaty by which Belgium and five others created the European Economic Community is named after which city?

Rome hosted the signing, but a Belgian shaped the treaty: foreign minister Paul-Henri Spaak chaired the committee that prepared it, earning him a place among the European Union's founding fathers.

Which Belgian king was forced to abdicate in 1951 after years of crisis over his conduct in the Second World War?

Leopold III, whose 1940 surrender and wartime conduct split the country in the 'Royal Question', returned in 1950 to strikes and riots and abdicated in July 1951 in favour of his son Baudouin.

Which Roman general lost a legion in 54 BC to Ambiorix, the chieftain honoured as a Belgian hero in Tongeren?

Julius Caesar lost a legion and five more cohorts to Ambiorix's ambush and wiped out the tribe in revenge, though the chieftain himself is said to have slipped away across the Rhine.

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

Liège–Bastogne–Liège, first run in 1892, is called 'La Doyenne', the old lady; in the blizzard of 1980 most of the field gave up and Bernard Hinault won by almost ten minutes with frostbitten fingers.

Which Belgian playwright won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Literature for works such as The Blue Bird?

Maurice Maeterlinck, a Fleming from Ghent who wrote in French, saw his plays feed other arts: Debussy set his Pelléas et Mélisande to music for the stage in 1902.

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

Lucky Luke, the man who shoots faster than his shadow, swapped his ever-present cigarette for a blade of straw in 1983, a change that won his creator an award from the World Health Organization.

Which Belgian jazz musician, famed for harmonica and whistling, played the theme tune of Sesame Street?

Toots Thielemans taught himself guitar after hearing Django Reinhardt, whistled along with it on his jazz waltz 'Bluesette', and was made a baron by the king in 2001.

Which African territory did the League of Nations entrust to Belgium as a mandate after the First World War?

Ruanda-Urundi, today's Rwanda and Burundi, had been occupied by troops from the Belgian Congo during the war; Belgium ran it until the two countries became independent in 1962.