Belgium - the country's history

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The history of Belgium stretches back before the origin of the modern state of that name in 1830. Belgium's history is intertwined with those of its neighbours: the Netherlands, Germany, France and Luxembourg. For most of its history, what is now Belgium was either a part of a larger territory, such as the Carolingian Empire, or divided into a number of smaller states, prominent among them being the Duchy of Brabant, the County of Flanders, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège and Luxembourg. Due to its strategic location and the many armies fighting on its soil, Belgium since the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) has often been called the "battlefield of Europe" or the "cockpit of Europe". It is also remarkable as a European nation which contains, and is divided by, a language boundary between Latin-derived French, and Germanic Dutch. Belgium's formation, like that of its Benelux neighbours, can be traced back to the "Seventeen Provinces" within the Burgundian Netherlands. These were brought together under the House of Valois-Burgundy, and eventually declared independent of both France and Germany by their descendant Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, in his Pragmatic Sanction of 1549. The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), led to the split between a northern Dutch Republic, and the Southern Netherlands from which Belgium and Luxembourg developed....