Provinces of Belgium

Provinces of Belgium Provincies van België (Dutch) Provinces de Belgique (French) Provinzen Belgiens (German)
20px Antwerp  East Flanders  Flemish        Brabant   Hainaut  Liège   Limburg   Luxembourg   Namur  Walloon Brabant  West Flanders   Flanders   Wallonia   Brussels
Category	Decentralised unit in a federal state
Location	Kingdom of Belgium
Number	10 provinces
Populations	278,748 (Luxembourg) – 1,813,282 (Antwerp)
Areas	1,090.6 km2 (421.07 sq mi) (Walloon Brabant) – 4,440 km2 (1,715 sq mi) (Luxembourg)
Government	Provincial government
Subdivisions	Arrondissment

The country of Belgium is divided into three regions. Two of these regions, the Flemish Region or Flanders, and Walloon Region, or Wallonia, are each subdivided into five provinces. The third region, the Brussels-Capital Region, is not divided into provinces, as it was originally only a small part of a province itself.

Many of the provinces evolved from earlier duchies and counties of the same name and similar location, albeit often with significant shifts of boundaries. At the time of the creation of Belgium in 1830, only nine provinces existed, including the province of Brabant, which held the city of Brussels. In 1995, Brabant was split into three areas: Flemish Brabant, which became a part of the region of Flanders; Walloon Brabant, which became part of the region of Wallonia; and the Brussels-Capital Region, which became a third region. These divisions reflected political tensions between the French-speaking Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Flemish; the Brussels-Capital Region is officially bilingual.

The division into provinces is fixed by Article 5 of the Belgian Constitution. The provinces are further subdivided into 589 municipalities, and further into administrative arrondissements.

List

Flag	Arms	Province	Dutch name	French name	German name	Capital	Governor		Area (km²)	Population (1 January 2015)	Postal codes	HASC	FIPS	ISO 3166-2:BE
	20px	Antwerp	Antwerpen	Anvers	Antwerpen	Antwerpen	Cathy Berx	since 2008	2860	1,813,282	2000-2999	BE.AN	BE01	VAN
		East Flanders	Oost-Vlaanderen	Flandre orientale	Ostflandern	Gent	Jan Briers	since 2013	2982	1,477,346	9000-9999	BE.OV	BE08	VOV
		Flemish Brabant	Vlaams-Brabant	Brabant flamand	Flämisch-Brabant	Leuven	Lodewijk De Witte	since 1995	2106	1,114,299	1500-1999, 3000-3499	BE.VB	BE12	VBR
		Limburg	Limburg	Limbourg	Limburg	Hasselt	Herman Reynders	since 2009	2414	860,204	3500-3999	BE.LI	BE05	VLI
		West Flanders	West-Vlaanderen	Flandre occidentale	Westflandern	Brugge	Carl Decaluwé	since 2012	3151	1,178,996	8000-8999	BE.WV	BE09	VWV
		Hainaut	Henegouwen	Hainaut	Hennegau	Mons	Guy Bracaval	since 2013	3800	1,335,360	7000-7999 (West), 6000-6999 (East, shared with Luxembourg)	BE.HT	BE03	WHT
		Liège	Luik	Liège	Lüttich	Liège	Hervé Jamar	since 2015	3844	1,094,791	4000-4999	BE.LG	BE04	WLG
or		Luxembourg	Luxemburg	Luxembourg	Luxemburg	Arlon	Bernard Caprasse	since 1996	4443	278,748	6000-6999 (shared with Eastern Hainaut)	BE.LX	BE06	WLX
		Namur	Namen	Namur	Namür	Namur	Denis Mathen	since 2007	3664	487,145	5000-5999	BE.NA	BE07	WNA
		Walloon Brabant	Waals-Brabant	Brabant wallon	Wallonisch-Brabant	Wavre	Gilles Mahieu	since 2015	1093	393,700	1300-1499	BE.BW	BE10	WBR

History

Further information: State reform in Belgium

Map of the Seventeen Provinces, red showing the border between the independent (Northern) Netherlands and the Southern Netherlands.

The Low Countries, including what are now Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, as well as parts of modern Germany and France were divided into a number of rival and independent feudal states of varying size. These had their own identities and governments, though almost all were united under a single ruler as the Seventeen Provinces or Southern Netherlands. Prominent among these states in modern Belgium were the Duchy of Brabant, the County of Flanders, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège and the Duchy of Luxembourg; smaller ones were the County of Hainaut, the Duchy of Limburg and the County of Namur, though there were others small states as well. Each of the modern provinces of Belgium with the exception of Antwerp takes its name from one of these, though their modern borders are in most cases substantially different from the historical ones.

The French First Republic

At the time of the independence of Belgium from the Netherlands in 1830, its territory simply consisted of the existing nine Belgian provinces. The first article of the Belgian Constitution said: "Belgium is divided into provinces. These provinces are Antwerp, Brabant, West Flanders, East Flanders, Hainaut, Liège, Limburg, Luxembourg, Namur, except for the relations of Luxembourg with the German Confederation."

Several years later, half of the province of Limburg became part of the Netherlands, which consequently has its own province of Limburg.

In 1920, following the First World War, the Eupen-Malmedy territory was annexed to Belgium and became part of the province of Liège.

During the second half of the 20th century, Belgium was transformed from a unitary state to a federal state with three Communities and three Regions. As part of the state reforms, the (bilingual) province of Brabant was split in 1995 into two (unilingual) provinces, Flemish Brabant and Walloon Brabant, and the (bilingual) Brussels-Capital Region. The Brussels-Capital Region does not belong to any province, is not a province, and does not contain any. The two provinces became part of the Flemish Region and the Walloon Region respectively. The remaining eight provinces became part of these regions as well, so the Flemish Region and the Walloon Region each contain five provinces.

Provincial governments

The provincial government consists of three main branches: the Provincial Council, which is the elected body, the Deputation or Provincial College, which is the executive body, and the Governor, who is appointed by the regional government (i.e. the Flemish or Walloon Government).

The Provincial Councils (Dutch: Provincieraad; French: Conseil provincial) are the representative bodies of the population of the provinces. This is the equivalent of the States-Provincial in the Netherlands. The numbers of seats in the Provincial Councils are proportional to the population of the province; the numbers were reduced in both Flanders and Wallonia, starting 2013 (following the 2012 elections). They are directly elected each six years, at the same time of the municipal elections. Before 1994, the provincial elections instead coincided with the national elections. Until then, the provincial councils also appointed Provincial Senators to the Belgian Senate.

The executive branch was previously called the Permanent Deputation. In the Flemish Region it is now simply called the Deputation (Dutch: Deputatie) and it consists of the Governor and six Deputies elected by the Provincial Council from among its members. Following the next 2018 election, there will be one Deputy less, i.e. five Deputies. In the Walloon Region it is called the Provincial College (French: Collège provincial) which consists of the Governor and four to five Deputies (depending on the number of inhabitants of the province) elected by the Provincial Council from among its members.

In Flemish Brabant, there is also a Deputy Governor (Dutch: Adjunct van de gouverneur). The Deputy Governor is appointed by the Flemish Government on the unanimous advice of the Federal Council of Ministers and must have a considerable knowledge of both the Dutch and the French language. He is responsible for ensuring that the language legislation is observed in the municipalities in the Brussels Periphery.

Following the Fifth State Reform, the responsibility for the provincial institutions was devolved to the Regions. The Regions have the power to amend or replace the existing legislation on the provincial institutions, most notably the Provincial Law of 30 April 1836. In the Flemish Region, the Provincial Decree of 9 December 2005 applies. In the Walloon Region, the Code of Local Democracy and Decentralisation applies. The legal framework in these Regions is still very similar, but that could change in the future. Although the Regions are responsible for the provincial institutions, the Federal State has retained its responsibility over the provinces in certain cases. For instance, the Regions are responsible for the appointment of the Provincial Governors, but only after the unanimous advice of the Federal Council of Ministers. Legislation regarding the Governor and Vice-Governor of Brussels-Capital, and the Deputy Governor of Flemish Brabant, has also remained a federal competency.

Absence of any province in the Brussels-Capital Region

The Brussels Region in Belgium.

The Brussels-Capital Region does not belong to any province, nor does it contain any. The extraprovincial status of Brussels has existed since 1995, when the former province of Brabant, which had Brussels as its capital, was divided into the Dutch-speaking province of Flemish Brabant and the French-speaking province of Walloon Brabant.

Within this mainly French speaking region, nearly all former provincial competencies are assumed by its regional institutions and by the French Community Commission, the Flemish Community Commission or the Common Community Commission. However, the Arrondissement of Brussels-Capital has two commissioners of the Federal Government who are called "Governor of the Brussels-Capital Region" and "Vice-Governor". The Governor exercises most of the few remaining powers elsewhere exercised by a provincial governor, particularly in the field of public order, as far as no (federal) law, (regional) decree, ordinance or decision states otherwise.

The Governor is appointed by the cabinet of the Brussels-Capital Region on the unanimous advice of the Federal Council of Ministers. The regional government also appoints the Vice-Governor, who must have a considerable knowledge of both the French and the Dutch language and who must ensure that the legislation regarding the use of languages is observed in Brussels.

Proposed additional province

The German-speaking Community.

Because the German-speaking Community is located entirely within the province of Liège, it has been proposed on multiple occasions to create an eleventh province, the Province of Eupen-Sankt Vith, which would comprise the nine municipalities of the German-speaking Community. Most of the functions carried out by provincial organs would then be exercised by the organs of the German-speaking Community.

The community is however small in area (854 km²) and has only about 76,000 inhabitants, which would make it the smallest and by far the least populated province.

See also

• Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium
• State reform in Belgium

External links

• The provinces, belgium.be
• Vereniging van de Vlaamse Provincies (Association of the Flemish Provinces)
• Association des Provinces wallonnes (Association of the Walloon Provinces)