Belgium Geography

One reason for the selection of Belgium as the European headquarters of so many companies and international organizations is its location. As illustrated on the map, Belgium is directly across the English Channel from Europe and shares a land border with Holland on the North, Germany and Luxembourg on the East and France on the South.

Belgium is a relatively small, highly populated country with a little over 10 million inhabitants squeezed into an area of about 30,000 square kilometres, roughly the size of the state of Maryland. With a population density of 300 inhabitants per square kilometre, Belgium has one of the highest population densities in Europe. The attached chart will give you a feel for difference in population density between Belgium and other countries and regions.

Region	Pop/Sq. Km	Region	Pop/Sq. Km
United States	28	United Kingdom	237
Canada	?	Netherlands	?
N.Y. State	?	France	104
Maryland	323	Japan	336
California	?	Australia	?

With a population density almost as great as Japan, you don’t come to Belgium for the ‘wide open spaces’!

At its widest point, basically between Arlon in the Southeast near Luxembourg and Le Zoute on the North Sea near the Dutch border, Belgium measures only about 330 km (200 miles) so you can drive right across the country in about three hours at the legal speed limit of 120 km/hr.

The Belgian Seacoast Belgium has a 70 km stretch of seacoast running from the exclusive resort of Knokke-Heist near the Dutch border to De Panne, a small fishing village near the famous World War II evacuation port of Dunkirk in France. A two lane highway runs beside the sea along the entire length of the coast right beside a tram line. The beautiful sandy beaches and promenades for cyclists and pedestrians make this a very popular vacation area for the Belgian people. There are numerous places all along the coast where you can rent various types of buggies, bicycles etc. making this an excellent place for the entire family.

The Belgian Ardennes This is an area of rolling hills bordering Luxembourg famous for the Battle of the Bulge fought near Bastogne and for the Spa/Francorchamps race track reputed to be the most beautiful on the Grand prix tour. It is the least populous area of the country and has some beautiful scenic drives and weekend getaways. The towns of Spa and Dinant are popular tourist areas in the Ardennes.

Flanders Flanders is best known for its light industry as compared to Wallonia which is known primarily for its heavy industry such as its steel mills and coal mines. The attached photo of a Mercedes dealer using the living room of his house as his showroom may not be particularly illustrative of Flanders but it just had to be on this web site someplace and this is as good a place as any.

Wallonia As with the other regions, it is difficult to illustrate an entire region with a single photograph. The Brussels-Charleroi canal passes through a good part of the province of Brabant and can be navigated by bicycle along its entire length from the centre of Brussels to the city of Charleroi. On this trip, you would see boats loaded with coal, sand, oil and other commodities, you would pass by three types of canal locks - regular locks, vertical lifts and the inclined railway lift at Ronquieres. You would also pass by some of the basic industries that still exist in Wallonia such as the Forge de Clabecq and the paper mill at Virginale.