page_title: Belgium in "the long nineteenth century"
section_title: Geography and demographics
hierarchical_section_title: Belgium in "the long nineteenth century" / General aspects / Geography and demographics
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Belgium, c. 1850-60 (certainly pre-1870). Borders with the Netherlands, France and Prussia marked and population given in table at bottom.
context_page_description: The history of Belgium from 1789 to 1914, the period dubbed the "long 19th century" by the historian Eric Hobsbawm, includes the end of Austrian rule and periods of French and Dutch occupation of the region, leading to the creation of the first independent Belgian state in 1830.
  In the years leading up to 1789, the territory today known as Belgium was divided into two states, called the Austrian Netherlands and Prince-Bishopric of Liège, both of which were part of the Holy Roman Empire. The area was captured by the French during the French Revolutionary Wars and incorporated into the French First Republic from roughly 1794 to 1815. In the aftermath of Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, the Congress of Vienna added the territory of Belgium to the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
  In 1830, with the Belgian Revolution the Belgian provinces declared their independence, but only finally gained it in 1839. From 1885 the creation of a personal colony by Leopold II, the Congo Free State caused and international outcry over human rights abuses, and forced the Belgian state to annex the region in 1908, forming the Belgian Congo.
context_section_description: The territory of Belgium varied little over the period. Belgium's border with the Netherlands was almost the same as that which had been created after the Dutch Revolt in the early 17th century, and its western border was almost the same as those of the 18th-century polities the Austrian Netherlands and Prince-Bishopric of Liège. It was only after the French annexation of 1795 that the territory became a single entity. In the 1830s, Belgian revolutionaries sought to create an independent state within the borders of the nine provinces that had been established under French occupation while ending the traditional roles of the small duchies, princedoms and counties which had traditionally been the basic territorial units. Aside from Zeelandic Flanders, part of Luxembourg, and Northern Limburg, which were ceded to the Dutch to compensate for the loss of the rest of the territory, the outline of Belgium in 1914 was virtually identical to that established by the French in 1795. The three ceded territories had a total of 300,000 inhabitants at the time.
  The northern half of Belgium, which would come to be known as Flanders, was a largely agricultural area containing the important port of Antwerp, the city of Ghent and the capital, Brussels. In the southern half, which would come to be known as Wallonia, a number of smaller towns and cities along the valley of the Sambre and Meuse rivers – the sillon industriel ("industrial valley") – became the focus of industrialization. In the west of the valley, around Charleroi, was the Pays Noir ("Black Country"), which held significant coal deposits. In southeast Belgium, along the border with Luxembourg and Prussia (later Germany), was the heavily forested and agricultural region known as the Ardennes.
  In 1784, Belgium's population was 2.6 million, with just 25 percent living in cities. During the 19th century, the population both expanded and urbanized. Between 1830 and 1875 the population of Brussels grew from 100,000 to 180,000, and by 1910 the population of the metropolitan area soared to 750,000. The population of Belgium was almost universally Roman Catholic, though free-thinking movements like Freemasonry were also popular among intellectuals and the urban middle classes.
  Throughout the "long 19th century," as a common destination for political refugees, Belgium was home to important émigré communities, particularly in Brussels. From 1871, many of the Paris Communards fled to Brussels, where they received political asylum. The far-right politician General Georges Boulanger arrived in 1889. Other notable exiles living in Belgium included the writer Victor Hugo and the theorist Karl Marx.
caption: Map of Belgium in the 1850s
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