Low Countries | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 2018-11-16

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Low Countries

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SUMMARY
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The Low Countries, the Low Lands (Dutch: de Lage Landen, French: les Pays Bas), or historically also the Netherlands (Dutch: de Nederlanden), is a coastal lowland region in northwestern Europe, forming the lower basin of the Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt rivers, divided in the Middle Ages into numerous semi-independent principalities that consolidated in the countries of Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.Historically, the regions without access to the sea have linked themselves politically and economically to those with access to form various unions of ports and hinterland, stretching inland as far as parts of the German Rhineland. It is why that nowadays some parts of the Low Countries are actually hilly, like Luxembourg and the south of Belgium. Within the European Union the region's political grouping is still referred to as the Benelux (short for Belgium-Netherlands-Luxembourg).
During the Roman empire the region contained a militarised frontier and contact point between Rome and Germanic tribes. With the collapse of the empire, the Low Countries were the scene of the early independent trading centres, that marked the reawakening of Europe in the 12th century. In that period, they rivalled northern Italy as one of the most densely populated regions of Western Europe. Most of the cities were governed by guilds and councils along with a figurehead ruler; interaction with their ruler was regulated by a strict set of rules describing what the latter could and could not expect from them. All of the regions mainly depended on trade, manufacturing and the encouragement of the free flow of goods and craftsmen.Dutch and French dialects were the main languages used in secular city life.