Belgium is Europe in a nutshell, multicultural and multilingual. Flanders in the north, a flatland criss-crossed by canals, is proud of its great art cities, Antwerp, Bruges and Ghent. To the south in Wallonia, you will find the rolling hills of the Ardennes, numerous castles, and the cities of Liege, Namur, and Tournai.
The "peaceful anarchism" of Brussels architecture may well be the feature that best characterizes Belgium as a whole. During its history of over 2000 years, the region has almost continuously been occupied by foreign powers: from the Romans to the Spanish, the Austrians, the French, the Dutch and the Germans. This has made the Belgians critical of any form of authority, and laws, rules and regulations are not taken very seriously (tax evasion is one of the national sports). This individualistic, anti-authoritarian attitude is perhaps best exemplified by the famous literary figure of Thyl Uilenspiegel, who mocked the Spanish authorities during the 16th century occupation.
Belgium packs quite a cultural punch; world-class art, picture-perfect castles, sumptuous chocolate everywhere and more varieties of beer than plant and wildlife species combined.It is a place of the divine (moules et frites) and the divided (the Flemish north and Walloon south are as different as raw chicory and cheese fondue). The north and south speak different languages and regard one another as culturally dubious.
Belgium's big-gun neighbours France, Germany and England (which faces it across the North Sea) long favoured this little nation as a nice spot to kill each other. Conquered by German tribes, Christianised by the 7th century and carved up during the Frankish Empire in 1100, much of Belgium enjoyed a golden age of prosperity and artistry under the French Duke of Burgundy during the 14th century.
The golden age began to tarnish in the mid-15th century when the Low Countries (present-day Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) were inherited by Spain, igniting a long battle against Catholic Spanish rule. The fanatically Catholic Philip II of Spain sent in the Inquisition to enforce Catholicism. Thousands were imprisoned or executed before full-scale war erupted in 1568. The Revolt of the Netherlands lasted 80 years and in the end Holland and its allied provinces booted out the Spaniards. Belgium and Luxembourg stayed under Spanish rule. Napolean's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo near Brussels led to the creation, in 1814, of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, melding Belgium and Luxembuorg into the Netherlands. But the Catholic Belgians revolted, winning independence in 1830.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place (aka France and Germany), Belgium managed to retain its neutrality throughout the century, at the end of which Flemish nationalism flowered. Meanwhile, King Leopold II began to amass a fortune for himself (and, indirectly, for his subjects) by his genocidal exploitation of his holdings in the African Congo.
Despite Belgium's neutral policy, the Germans invaded in 1914. Another German attack in 1940 saw the entire country taken over within three weeks. King Leopold III's questionably early capitulation to the Germans led to his abdication in 1950 in favour of his son, King Baudouin, whose popular reign ended with his death in 1993. Childless, Baudouin was succeeded by his brother, the present King Albert II.
Belgium was rocked during the nineties by public revelations of incompetence during the investigation of a paedophile case. This prompted 300,000 Belgians to march through the streets of Brussels in 1996 to protest against the country's malfunctioning police and judicial systems. In 2004, Marc Dutroux was finally given a life sentence for the rape and murder of several young girls. In 2003, controversial legislation was implemented giving Belgian courts the authority to bring foreigners to trial for war crimes and human rights violations was dropped following intense lobbying by - among others - US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who hinted that Belgium's role as the seat of NATO might be jeopardised by the law.
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