50 Fun Facts About Brussels

Which action star was born in Brussels?

Jean-Claude Van Damme, 'the Muscles from Brussels', was born in Berchem-Sainte-Agathe in 1960. The City of Brussels itself is only one of the region's 19 municipalities, each run by its own mayor and council.

Brussels began on an island, and its name most likely means what in Old Dutch?

Settlement in the marsh is the usual reading: Old Dutch 'bruoc', marsh, plus 'sella', home. The river that fed the marsh turned so foul that the city vaulted it over in the 19th century.

On which river did Brussels grow up?

Brussels grew up on the Senne; the river's course through the city was covered over between 1867 and 1871 because it had become a health hazard.

Which work did Karl Marx finish in Brussels in early 1848, weeks before revolution broke out in Paris?

The Communist Manifesto was printed in London that February, just as revolution broke out in Paris. Days later Belgium's king ordered Marx out of the country, and the Brussels police held him under arrest before he left.

Which two languages are official in the Brussels-Capital Region?

French and Dutch are the region's two official languages; historically Dutch-speaking, the city shifted to French from the late 19th century, and the region itself was created in 1989.

Which flower is the emblem of the Brussels Region and appears on its flag?

The yellow iris has been the region's emblem since 1991, drawn as a stylised bloom on a blue flag. It also gives its name to the Iris Festival, the region's official celebration every May.

Which two bodies besides the EU have their headquarters or secretariat in Brussels?

NATO and the Benelux Union both have their seats in Brussels. NATO only arrived in 1967, moving from Paris after France pulled out of the alliance's military command.

Which archangel, patron saint of the City of Brussels, tops the Town Hall spire as a gilded statue?

Michael, slaying a demon, crowns a tower that sits visibly off-centre. Legend says the architect leapt from it on spotting the flaw, but the building simply went up in stages over half a century.

Which Habsburg emperor abdicated his possessions at the Coudenberg Palace in 1555?

Charles V, crippled by gout, leaned on young William of Orange's shoulder as he handed the Netherlands to his son Philip. William later led the Dutch revolt against that same Philip.

Which French king's bombardment of 1695 destroyed the Grand-Place and a third of the city?

Louis XIV's army shelled Brussels for three days in August 1695, hoping to draw the allies away from their siege of Namur. It failed: Namur fell three weeks later.

The Belgian Revolution broke out in 1830 on the night Brussels staged which opera about a revolt in Naples?

La Muette de Portici played in Brussels on 25 August 1830; after its patriotic duet many in the audience left to join the riots that grew into the Belgian Revolution.

Who became the first King of the Belgians in 1831?

Leopold of Saxe-Coburg took the oath as Leopold I, first King of the Belgians, on 21 July 1831; the date became Belgium's national day.

Which first for Belgium opened between Brussels and Mechelen in May 1835?

A railway line: trains first ran from Brussels to Mechelen on 5 May 1835. Belgium, independent for less than five years, planned its lines as a state project and built Europe's first national rail network.

Which famous battle was fought just south of Brussels?

Waterloo, fought on 18 June 1815, ended Napoleon's rule for good. Three nights earlier Wellington was at the Duchess of Richmond's ball in Brussels when word came of how fast the French were advancing.

Which exiled French novelist lodged in a guildhall on the Grand-Place in 1852?

Victor Hugo, who had fled France after denouncing Louis-Napoléon's coup, lodged at the Pigeon guildhall on the square. UNESCO added the Grand-Place to its World Heritage list in 1998.

Where is the original 1619 Manneken Pis kept, now that a replica stands on its street corner?

The Brussels City Museum, on the Grand-Place, keeps Jérôme Duquesnoy's bronze. The statue was stolen or damaged so often that a copy took its place in 1965, the year a thief snapped it off at the ankles.

Roughly how many costumes are in Manneken Pis's wardrobe?

About 1,000 costumes fill the wardrobe, which has its own museum on the statue's street. Louis XV is said to have sent a gold-embroidered suit in 1747, to calm the city after his soldiers tried to steal the statue.

What is Jeanneke Pis?

Jeanneke Pis is a fountain of a squatting girl, unveiled in 1987. Restaurant owner Denis-Adrien Debouvrie proposed her to lure visitors into his dead-end alley, and is said to have wanted to restore equality with Manneken Pis.

What does Het Zinneke, the third of Brussels's 'Pis' sculptures, show?

Het Zinneke, Tom Frantzen's bronze of 1999, shows a dog urinating against a bollard; its name is Brussels dialect for a mutt. When a car broke its legs in 2015, the sculptor mended it and put it back on its corner.

For which event was the Atomium built?

The 1958 World's Fair, Expo 58, was meant to be the Atomium's whole life: it was designed to last six months. It proved so popular that its demolition was put off year after year, and it never came down.

The Atomium's nine spheres show the unit cell of which crystal, magnified 165 billion times?

Iron it is, though the name says otherwise: 'Atomium' blends 'atom' and 'aluminium', the metal that first covered the nine spheres. Stainless steel took its place in the renovation of 2004 to 2006.

Which Brussels-born musician had a number-one hit across Europe with 'Alors on danse'?

Stromae, born Paul Van Haver, first rapped as Opsmaestro, then made his stage name by swapping the syllables of 'maestro'. His 2009 song went to number one from France to Russia.

Which park at the foot of the Atomium is filled with 1:25 scale models of famous buildings?

Mini-Europe shows about 350 buildings from some 80 cities, and not all of them stand still: its Vesuvius erupts, and its Berlin Wall comes down.

Which EU institution is housed in the Berlaymont building?

The Berlaymont is the headquarters of the European Commission; asbestos found in 1990 forced a renovation that lasted until 2004.

Which architect's Art Nouveau town houses in Brussels are UNESCO-listed?

Victor Horta opened up the gloomy middle of the narrow Brussels town house with a metal frame and a glass roof that let daylight into its core. Four of his houses, his own among them, joined UNESCO's list in 2000.

What does the term 'Brusselisation' describe?

'Brusselisation' means the careless demolition and redevelopment of a historic city by unchecked developers. Its emblem is the Maison du Peuple, an Art Nouveau landmark torn down in 1965 to make way for an office tower.

Which Brussels landmark's restoration began in 1984 and was still unfinished 40 years later?

The Palace of Justice, Joseph Poelaert's design and reputedly the largest building of the 19th century, wore its scaffolding so long that the scaffolding itself had to be renovated.

Which chocolate was invented in 1912 in Brussels's Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert?

The praline, a chocolate shell around a soft filling, was Jean Neuhaus II's idea; his family's shop had begun as a pharmacy coating its medicines in chocolate. The glass-roofed arcade around it had opened in 1847.

Which king drove the completion of the Cinquantenaire's triumphal arch in 1905?

Leopold II fought for years with a government that refused to pay for the arch. It was finally finished with private money in 1905, just in time for the 75th anniversary of Belgian independence.

Which vehicles ran through Brussels's first underground line before it became a metro?

Trams used the tunnel from De Brouckère to Schuman from 1969, a 'premetro' built so that it could be upgraded later. Metro trains took it over on 20 September 1976.

Which comic-strip hero's creator, Hergé, was born in the municipality of Etterbeek?

Tintin first appeared in 1929 in the children's supplement of a Brussels newspaper. His creator's pen name is a trick of its own: Georges Remi reversed his initials to R.G., which in French is pronounced 'Hergé'.

Which Hollywood star was born into an aristocratic family in Ixelles, Brussels?

Audrey Hepburn was born at 48 Rue Keyenveld in Ixelles, the daughter of a Dutch baroness. As a teenager in the occupied Netherlands she is said to have danced in secret recitals to raise money for the resistance.

Which singer-songwriter was born in Schaerbeek, Brussels, in 1929?

Jacques Brel was born in Schaerbeek and at 18 went to work in his father's cardboard factory. In 1953 he sang in a Brussels cabaret, then left for Paris that autumn over his family's objections.

René Magritte, who has his own museum in Brussels's Royal Quarter, was a leading painter of which movement?

Surrealism's best-known Belgian spent years designing wallpaper and advertisements before he could paint full-time. His museum, opened in 2009, shows some 200 of his works, The Empire of Light among them.

Which Brussels club held the Belgian record of 34 league titles as of 2025?

RSC Anderlecht was founded in 1908 by a dozen football lovers meeting in a local café. It has also won five European trophies, more than any other Belgian club.

Which Brussels-born defender captained Manchester City to their first league title in 44 years?

Vincent Kompany, born in Uccle, lifted that trophy in 2012. His father Pierre, who reached Belgium as a political refugee from Mobutu's Zaire, was elected mayor of Ganshoren, another Brussels municipality, in 2018.

What does the Ommegang, Brussels's costumed summer procession, re-enact?

A royal entry into the city in 1549 is the scene, but the Ommegang has only replayed it since 1930. The procession itself is two centuries older and began as a religious one.

What covers the centre of the Grand-Place for a few days every other August?

A carpet of flowers: volunteers from around Belgium lay nearly a million begonias or dahlias into an 1,800 m² pattern. It lasts only three or four days, around Assumption Day.

Brussels sprouts, long grown around the city they are named after, are a variety of which vegetable?

Cabbage: sprouts were bred for the buds along the stalk rather than the leaves. Kale, broccoli and cauliflower are the very same species too, however little they look alike.

Which Brussels museum occupies the Art Nouveau Old England department store building?

The Musical Instruments Museum (MIM) occupies the Art Nouveau Old England department store of 1899 on the Rue Montagne de la Cour, near the Place Royale.

The light, rectangular Brussels waffle has a denser, sweeter rival named after which Belgian city?

Liège gives its name to the chewier, richer one. The Brussels kind became a hit in America at the 1964 New York World's Fair, where its seller renamed it the 'Bel-Gem' waffle because many Americans could not place Brussels.

What nickname do French speakers give comics, the medium honoured by Brussels's Comic Book Route?

The ninth art is the name French-language critics have given comics since the 1960s. The route began in 1991 with a humbler aim, to brighten the empty walls and gables of buildings around the city.

About how big is the Brussels-Capital Region, the smallest of Belgium's three regions?

About 160 km²: more than 1.2 million people live on it, which makes Brussels by far Belgium's most densely populated region. The city long ago outgrew those borders, and its wider metropolitan area holds over 2.5 million.

Brussels forms an enclave within which part of Belgium?

Flanders surrounds Brussels completely, though Wallonia begins less than 4 km to the south. Flanders even keeps its own official capital in Brussels, a city that lies outside its borders.

Which comic characters did the Brussels-born cartoonist Peyo create in 1958?

The Smurfs began as bit players in Peyo's medieval series Johan and Peewit. By his own account their French name, Schtroumpfs, was a nonsense word he blurted out at dinner when he could not think of 'salt'.

Which sour beer of the Brussels area is fermented by wild airborne yeast instead of brewer's yeast?

Lambic is left overnight in a shallow open pan so that wild yeasts and bacteria can drift in and start the fermentation. Young and old batches blended and bottled become gueuze.

Which two industries made Brussels famous across Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries?

Brussels was famed for lace and tapestry: its workshops wove Raphael's Acts of the Apostles tapestries for the Sistine Chapel in the 1510s, and Brussels lace dressed Europe's courts.

Which industrialist founded the Brussels physics conferences that drew Einstein, Bohr and Marie Curie?

Ernest Solvay, a chemical industrialist, founded the meetings in 1911. At the 1927 conference Einstein and Bohr argued over quantum theory, and 17 of the 29 guests were or became Nobel laureates.

Which theatre staged the opera whose audience joined the Belgian Revolution's riots in 1830?

La Monnaie is named after the mint that once stood on its site. On 25 August 1830 its audience spilled out of a patriotic opera and into the riots that grew into the revolution.

Which British nurse was shot by a German firing squad in Brussels in 1915 for helping Allied soldiers escape?

Edith Cavell ran a nursing school in Ixelles and helped some 200 Allied soldiers slip out of occupied Belgium. Her execution, carried out despite pleas for mercy, was condemned around the world.