Geographic location
Belgium covers only 30,528 km2 and its longest axis, from northwest to southeast, is only 290 km long. This small country is part of the dynamic area of the continent: the "blue banana" that stretches from the north of England to the north of Italy. Its geographical location is very advantageous as it shares borders with the Netherlands, Germany, France and Luxembourg, and is equidistant from London, Paris, Amsterdam and the industrial area of Frankfurt and Cologne. It is therefore not surprising that Brussels is the seat of the European Commission and Council. Belgium is bordered on the northwest by the North Sea. Three rivers flow through the country: the Yser, the Scheldt and the Meuse. Their watersheds, composed of numerous rivers (such as the Senne, which irrigates Brussels), ensure the availability of water for agricultural crops.
Reliefs
The "flat country", as Jacques Brel described it, has little relief, but has the particularity of being inclined along a south-east-north-west axis, starting from the Ardennes massif and descending to the North Sea. Thus, in the extreme east of the country, on the plateau of the Hautes Fagnes in the province of Liege, the signal of Botrange culminates at 694 meters. On the other hand, the region of Les Moëres, straddling the French-Belgian border (west coast of the country), is located below sea level. Indeed, as in the neighboring Netherlands, this marshy area has been reclaimed from the sea thanks to large-scale reclamation works. The water was drained by a dense network of ditches and canals, which is discharged into the sea on the French side via the Watringues pumps. The nature here is very flat, open and little wooded. The geographical reading of the kingdom of Belgium is distinguished according to three regions.
Lower Belgium
The northern part of the country is less than 100 meters above sea level and consists of a 65 km long ribbon of dunes and ancient polders, stretching from the French border near Dunkirk to the Dutch border east of Bruges. The hinterland includes West Flanders, from the Scheldt and Leie plains in the west to the Kempen plain in the east. This region with its flat and monotonous landscape is used for the cultivation of cereals, potatoes and dairy cows. It includes the cities of Antwerp, Ghent, Kortrijk and Leuven. The soil is sandy or sandy-silty, including the coastal strip of fine sand along the North Sea. It reaches in some places more than 500 meters wide at low tide. To protect its coasts, Belgium has installed breakwaters.
The average Belgium
This central lowland, oscillating between 100 and 200 meters in altitude, has the most fertile land in the country. It is bounded to the south by the valleys of the Sambre and the Meuse. It is an extremely urbanized region, especially Brussels-Capital (Brabant region); paradoxically it is in this area that we find intensive cattle breeding and the main farms, particularly in the countries of Hainaut and Hesbaye. It includes the forest of Soigne in the Brussels suburbs.
Upper Belgium
The south of the country, situated between 200 and nearly 700 meters of altitude, has preserved more of its original geographical aspect. It is located south of the Sambre-et-Meuse furrow and is part of the Ardennes massif. Upper Belgium is composed of the Condroz, the Fagne-Famenne, the Calestienne, the Pays de Herve, the Ardennes and the Belgian Lorraine. The density is the lowest in the kingdom because of the three massifs covered with forests that make it up: the Fagne, the Haute Fagne, which has the highest point in Belgium, the Signal de Botrange (694 meters), and the Ardenne plateau. There are many caves and deep valleys, but few agricultural crops. In the extreme south, the Belgian Lorraine, also called Gaume, enjoys a better climate and even practices wine growing.
The Yser, coastal river
This river of almost 90 km long has its source in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, near Saint-Omer. Then, it irrigates Western Flanders by meandering for 50 km on the Belgian side, passing through the cities of Dixmude and Nieuport, before flowing into the North Sea. It is the only one of the three rivers that has its mouth in Belgium. On the Flemish side, the Yser is pumped to supply drinking water to this province which lacks exploitable groundwater. This river is also used as a transport route since Roman times. It was canalized with dredging and bank development from the 16th to the 19th century, especially in the low, wet meadows of the polder regions drained by a vast network of ditches. Although river traffic dropped in the 1950s, the Yser remains a popular river for pleasure boats.
The Scheldt, the historical river
This vast and powerful European river of 355 km long crosses three countries: France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The name is of Celtic origin and means "shining river". It also flows into the North Sea but in the Netherlands, and has its source in France in the Aisne, in Picardy, near Saint-Quentin. It is a slow and not very powerful river on which the influence of the tide is felt up to 160 km from the mouth. The river mouth is located opposite the Thames mouth, which has contributed a lot to the commercial exchanges between Flanders and England since the Middle Ages. This estuary belongs to a common delta with the Meuse and the Rhine. The Scheldt passes through Tournai, Ghent and Antwerp, making it a strategic river for maritime transport, Antwerp being the second largest port in Europe after nearby Rotterdam. The huge ships travel through a channel dug in the estuary. In addition, it is connected to Ghent by the Ghent-Terneuzen canal, to the Rhine and the Meuse, but also to the port of Brussels by the maritime canal.
The Meuse, the most powerful river
This gigantic river stretches for 950 km. It is the longest, widest and most powerful of the three. It too flows through France and Belgium, and empties into the North Sea in the Netherlands, in the same delta as the Scheldt and Rhine. It rises in the Haute-Marne region of France, and meanders 128 km through Wallonia, through the water-rich Ardennes massif, past Dinant to Namur. Here, the Meuse joins the Sambre. From Namur to Visé, the river's six hydroelectric power stations generate electricity. It then flows through the former coal basin of the Liège region. Together with the Albert Canal, it feeds the city's major river port, one of the biggest in Europe, handling almost 40 million tonnes of goods a year! It has played a key strategic role in river transport since Antiquity, and especially in the Middle Ages. The river then runs between Belgium and the Netherlands, marking the border from Maastricht onwards, then along the Flemish province of Limburg.
A land of river canals
A network of canals links the kingdom, from Zeebrugge (north of Brugge) to Maastricht in the Netherlands. They were developed to facilitate the transport of goods. Although Bruges, nicknamed the Venice of the North, and the surrounding region of Mechelen have kept their bucolic canals, which are now popular with tourists, they are an intrinsic part of the landscape of the Flemish countryside and towns, even if many of them were destroyed during the Industrial Revolution, notably in Ghent and Antwerp.
The major waterways of the Belgian network can be traced schematically along three north-south river axes, linking the industrial regions of the south and east of the country with the seaports of the north: the fabulous Albert Canal linking Antwerp and Liège, dug in the 1930s to accommodate large ships; the Maritime Scheldt Canal which, together with the Brussels Maritime Canal and the Brussels-Charleroi Canal, links Antwerp to these two cities; and finally, the Nimy-Blaton-Péronnes Canal which, together with the Scheldt, links Antwerp and Ghent.
Tourist routes have been set up in the countryside to enjoy the peace and beauty of the canal, as well as its structures. On the other hand, the Industrial Revolution brought spectacular transformations to certain canals to export coal and steel production. On the Canal du Centre, for example, four hydraulic elevators built at the end of the 19th century near La Louvière are now classified as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and are the subject of a boat trip in the Parc des Canaux et Châteaux.
A galloping urbanization
Most of the population lives along the two main rivers, the Scheldt and Meuse, as well as in the large urban area encompassing Kortrijk, Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels.
With 11.7 million inhabitants, it is Europe's third most densely populated state at 385 inhabitants/km², behind Malta and the Netherlands. Almost 98% of its inhabitants live in urban areas. The southern part of the country is relatively sparsely populated, compared with the more dynamic north.
Historically, Belgians were relatively evenly distributed between the countryside and the cities, but the Industrial Revolution completely upset this balance with a massive exodus from the countryside. From the beginning of the 20th century, Flemish people migrated from declining textile production to the Walloon industrial basin of the Sambre-et-Meuse, to work in coal mines and steelworks. But also along the Brussels-Antwerp axis, whose ports were very active in exporting industrial production. Since then, urbanization has been rampant, and many rural areas have become peri-urban centers, sought-after for their quality of life, tranquility and greenery. Since the 1990s, 18 new soccer pitches a day have been concreted in the country! So much so that in 30 years, 1,400 km2 of Belgium have been built up, nine times the size of Brussels-Capital.
Plans to limit urbanization, known as "stop concrete", have just been put in place. A first brake is planned for 2025 at 6 km2 of expansion per year, but they extend to 2040 for Flanders and 2050 for Wallonia. They involve abandoning the Belgian model of the detached house with garden, in favor of more vertical apartments in blocks of apartments. A real challenge for the country.
