Qualla: Belgium

Belgium: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit William Murphy from Dublin, Ireland, CC BY-SA 2.0. For a country smaller than the state of Maryland, Belgium has produced a remarkable amount of complication. There are six governments serving eleven million people. There are three official languages, four federal entities, and an ongoing constitutional negotiation that the Belgians themselves admit they no longer fully understand. And yet, somehow, this Lilliputian federation produces some of Europe's best chocolate, almost certainly its best beer, and a quiet, persistent influence on the continent it sits in the middle of - because Brussels, by happy historical accident, became the capital of the European Union.

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Image: William Murphy from Dublin, Ireland | CC BY-SA 2.0

Belgium: A Country Built on Compromise

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer), CC BY 4.0. Belgium was not really meant to exist. In 1830, the Southern Provinces of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands rose up and seceded - Catholic, partly French-speaking, and increasingly unwilling to be ruled from The Hague. The Great Powers of Europe, alarmed at the prospect of a ...

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Image: Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer) | CC BY 4.0

Belgium: The Language Line

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elio_Di_Rupo_and_Howard_Gutman,_Brussels_April_18,_2012.jpg: U.S. Department of State from United States derivative work: Tktru, Public domain. Run an invisible line across Belgium, just south of Brussels, and you split a country in two. North of the line lies Flanders, where roughly six million people speak Dutch (or, more precisely, the Belgian variant called Flemish). South lies Wallonia, where about three and a half ...

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Image: Elio_Di_Rupo_and_Howard_Gutman,_Brussels_April_18,_2012.jpg: U.S. Department of State from United States derivative work: Tktru | Public domain

Belgium: Beer Country

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jan van Eyck / Presumably Hubert van Eyck, Public domain. There are roughly 400 active Belgian breweries producing well over a thousand distinct beers, and the country takes the subject more seriously than any place on earth. Trappist abbeys still brew within monastery walls - Westvleteren, Orval, Rochefort, Chimay, and Westmalle - usin...

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Image: Jan van Eyck / Presumably Hubert van Eyck | Public domain

Belgium: What the Land Looks Like

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. Belgium splits geographically much as it does linguistically. The north is low and flat, ribboned with canals and crossed by the slow brown waters of the Scheldt. Antwerp's harbor is the second largest in Europe. The medieval cores of Bruges and Ghent survived the centuries almos...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Belgium: Frites, Waffles, and Other Lies the Belgians Tell

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit A.Savin, CC BY-SA 3.0. Call them french fries in Belgium and you will be corrected, politely but firmly. They are frites, invented here, traditionally fried twice in beef tallow, and served everywhere from a little stand called a frituur with a paper cone and one of about thirty available sauces. The w...

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Image: A.Savin | CC BY-SA 3.0

Belgium: Why It Still Holds Together

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NerdyMaps, CC BY-SA 4.0. Outsiders sometimes predict that Belgium will eventually split. Flanders is wealthier, more conservative, and culturally distinct from Wallonia. The Flemish nationalist N-VA is the largest party in the country. And yet the split never happens. Part of the reason is Brussels itsel...

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Image: NerdyMaps | CC BY-SA 4.0