Gallia Belgica
When Julius Caesar conquered the area he described it as the less economically developed and more warlike part of "Gallia Belgica". His informants told him that especially in the east, the tribes claimed ancestral connections and kinship with the "Germanic" peoples then east of the Rhine. Under the Roman empire the whole of "Gallia Belgica" became an administrative province. The future counties of Flanders and Brabant remained part of this province connected to what is now France, but in the east modern Limburg became part of the Rhine frontier province of "Germania Inferior" connected to what is now the Netherlands and Germany. "Gallia Belgica" and "Germania Inferior" were the two most northerly continental provinces of the Roman empire.