Belgium Country Info - Europe

Description and Basic Information

Belgium with its capital Brussels is located in Europe (Western Europe, bordering the North Sea). It covers some 30,511 square kilometres (about the size of Maryland) with 10,403,000 citizens. Dutch, French and German are the languages commonly used by the people in Belgium (consider regional differences). Germany, Netherlands, Luxembourg and France are bordering countries.

Belgium is a low-lying country on the North Sea coast. It has a very high rate of urbanization and has an astonishing number of cities for such a small territory. Being such a small country (300 km as its maximum distance), you can get anywhere in a couple of hours. Public transport is fast and comfortable. Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. However, English is widely spoken by the younger generations. Belgium is famous for its good cuisine and people like to go to restaurants frequently. The style is influenced not only by the surrounding countries but also by many other countries. Belgium's capital and the unofficial capital of the EU is Brussels with a nice historic centre. One of the most multicultural cities in Europe.

Pictures from Capital (Brussels)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Belgium

The landscape features flat coastal plains in northwest, central rolling hills, rugged mountains of Ardennes Forest in southeast. The average density of population is about 340 per km². The climate in Belgium can be described as temperate with mild winters, cool summers, rainy, humid, cloudy. Potential threats by nature are flooding being a threat along rivers and in areas of reclaimed coastal land, protected from the sea by concrete dikes.

To reach someone in Belgium dial +32 prior to a number. There are 4,255,000 installed telephones. And there are 12,419,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800 MHz and 3G. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".be". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 230V - 50Hz. The following list are the 3 regions/states in Belgium we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Belgian population grew at a rate of 0.08% (or by 8,547 citizens). With 109,447 deaths and 105,277 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at -0.04%. 12,717 persons more in total immigrated to the country than emmigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Belgium: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.