|> It is as much an official region as Flanders or Wallonia (though it is not a community) and it certainly isn't a eleventh province or so.

I've always meant to ask, is it a bit similar to Washington DC; not a part of any state (province), to prevent "jealousy" between the state (province) containing the capital city and the other states (provinces, and in the Belgian case, maybe even language communities)?

http://warlight.net/SinglePlayer.aspx?PreviewMap=7555 another link to benelux map

@RvW: You asked for it... here it comes

I'm not an expert on the case, but I'd say that it's not a matter of "jealousy". It's rather that it belongs "equally" to both and so they decided to make it part of none of both. (I guess, because I wasn't born when we started to cut ourselves in pieces.) I say it belongs equally to both because Brussels was a unilingual Flemisch town untill about 1850, when it started to become French. Nowadays about 80% of the people in it speak French.

Note that I was talking about **gewesten/régions/regions**. They make decisions that are location-bound like traffic, economy and work, agriculture ... Provinces always are a part of a region. (Example: West-Vlaanderen is a part of Vlaanderen and Namur is a part of Wallonia.) Since Brussels already is a region, it can't be a province as well.

Belgium also has three **gemeenschappen/communautés/communities**. They are Flanders, Wallonia and the German speaking community. This time Brussels belongs to bóth Flanders and Wallonia. The german speaking municipalities lie entirely within the province of Liège and thus are part of the Walloon regio. Those communities make decisions about person-bound matters like education, culture, sports ...

So the **language areas** in Belgium are: 1)Flanders (the region) : Dutch ; 2) Wallonia (the region but without the german speaking community): French; 3) Brussels (the region) :officially bilingual French-Dutch and 4) the german part where they speak German (duh).

There are two more things to note: one are the *municipalities with language facilities*, which lie in one language area but where a lot of people with another mothertongue live. A few examples: some on the language border nl/fr, a few municipalities around the Brussels capital region and all the german speaking municipalities (which are german/fr). In those municipalities, people can be served in two languages (e.g. at the townhouse).

Last note (for experts !!! warning: trying to fully understand this will cost you 541 days): Strangly the **kieskringen/circonscriptions électorale/electoral arrondissements** don't exactly follow the provinces. In most cases they do, but 1 time it goes wrong: at Brussels. the province Vlaams-Brabant is split in half and one part merges with the Brussels region. And there you have the birth of Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde. In that (electionary) region people in Flanders can vote on Frenchtalking politicians from Brussels. There is no reverse case in Belgium, so Flemish politics call it unfair and even unconstitutional. Walloon/Brussels politicians say it is fair, since a lot of those municipalities (in Flanders) are de facto unilingual French. Since a "talentelling" (a kind of national survey on which language you speak) is officially forbidden in Belgium since 1961, there is no way to sort it out.

And that's why it takes us 1,5 years quarreling to get to a compromis (being a split of BHV with a lot of compensations).

Interesting remark: a few of the scenarios of a Belgian split contain "Brussels DC" as a separate state and a true capital for the EU.

Congretulations antiloopje, you've just made the Comment of the Day!


And you convinced me on Brussels, do you mean [this](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Flag_Belgium_brussels.svg) with the Brussels logo?

yep that's the one

And yeah, you can't explain Belgium in 5 minutes...

And what do you mean with the 541 days?

@antiloopje:
Ah, thank you. I think I knew about half of that, but especially the part where Brussels used to be completely Flemish-speaking, the "municipalities with language facilities" and the ban on determining (effectively) the exact location of the language border were all new to me. (Shame on me, I did know the language border is slowly creeping Northward, so it makes sense Brussels would've been Flemish once upon a time.)

|> Interesting remark: a few of the scenarios of a Belgian split contain "Brussels DC" as a separate state and a true capital for the EU.

Yes, I've heard those scenarios (let's not call them "plans"!). And don't worry, I won't suggest merging Flanders with the Netherlands. I've made that mistake once (in the summer of 2005, while talking to a Flemish girl :s). Since then I've learned that Flemish people don't like the idea (to put it mildly), I've been convinced myself that it's a terrible plan which just wouldn't work and for the rest of my life I won't forget the important events of 2005 - 175...
But, what to do then with Flanders and Walloon? Maybe it's just me; when Czechoslovakia and (most of) Yugoslavia split up, I was too young to really even be aware of it. I think the first national split I consciously noticed was Kosovo breaking of from Serbia. In that case, it felt like "if they want to be separate, they should be". But Belgium splitting up? I dunno, it just feels weird, maybe even "wrong". Maybe it's my "national" (for lack of a better word) pride?
Who said "Common sense is the sum of prejudices obtained when you turn eighteen."? To me, Belgium should be one country; a map of Europe with the countries Flanders and Walloon between the Netherlands and France makes no sense... Besides, how will we ever explain where the name "Benelux" came from (though I gotta admit, "Neluxwafl" (pronounced "'ne Luiks' wafel" does have a good ring to it :p ).

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@Moros:
|> And what do you mean with the 541 days?

Last time it took Belgium 541 days (I only knew it was 1,5 year, I didn't remember the exact number of days) to go from elections to forming a government. Usually I would've made fun of that to all my Belgian friends, if it wasn't for us screwing up even worse (giving borderline-racists actual, real influence, but not making them accountable at all...).

I'm not sure if you remember, but even the Dutch newspapers were full of "BHV" (which, all of a sudden, didn't mean "bedrijfshulpverlening" anymore, but "Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde", the electoral district antiloopje was talking about). I actually posted (my best attempt at) an explanation a while ago somehwere on the WL forums (since there didn't seem to be Belgians around to give a proper explanation).

I always envision Brussels more as a post-second-world-war Berlin than a Washington DC.

Hey guys, I'm back.

Map looks good, Moros, just reminding you that you haven't included Groningen in the sub-NAP bonus yet.

Zuidhorn and "Kollumerland en Nieuwkruisland" aren`t connected. (Groningen and Friesland)

I've heard of a Dutch friend that groningen is half under NAP

i've heard of a dutch friend that groningen is half beneath NAP

The above/below NAP bonus was added because Moros wanted another level of bonuses for the Netherlands. For Belgium there is the very natural division into Flanders and Walloon, but no such division exists for the Netherlands.

The idea was to divide our twelve provinces into two groups, preferably six each, with approximately the same number of territories and both subgroups being contiguous (so not having North Holland and Limburg in the one group and Gelderland and Noord Brabant in the other). This turned out to be far from trivial but eventually we found something workable.

Only after the division was made did we even start thinking about what to call them. The above/below NAP names are not fully correct; what happened is that those names were given to the bonuses after they were formed, it's not the case the bonuses were named and then had the corresponding territories assigned to them.

The most important reasons for choosing these names are "they need *a* name", "the names are mostly correct", "it's really a "typically Dutch" name, fitting with the theme of the map".

parts of Groningen are indeed under NAP also half Utrecht is under NAP and only half of Zeeland is under NAP. So he would have to change a lot. I think he just can put Groningen in the "above NAP" bonus and than leave it like it is.

Maybe I should just call the bonuses Eastern and Western Netherlands. Or Coastal-Inland.

I like the above/below NAP names. And it is not very likely that non dutch people know what NAP mean anyway.

|> Maybe I should just call the bonuses Eastern and Western Netherlands. Or Coastal-Inland.

Aww, I really liked those names. :(

|> I like the above/below NAP names. And it is not very likely that non dutch people know what NAP mean anyway.

Maybe "Above/below sea level" would be a better (clearer) name?

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Four small things:

- For people not keeping the tab open: http://warlight.net/SinglePlayer.aspx?PreviewMap=7555
- I really like how Bonaire (no stupid spellchecker, I did not mean "bonfire"...) has a connection line going all the way through Zeeland, but actually going to Antwerp.
- There's a tiny island to the West of Moerdijk which is currently not a part of any territory (I'm not talking about the Easter egg, that's much farther to the Northwest).
- The anchor in Brussels is rotated on its side.

i think the yellow line connects to the wrong harbour in Antwerpen. It leads to the [Koninklijke Liberty Yacht Club](http://www.klyc.be/) instead of the actual industrial harbour.

The tiny island doesn't appear to be part of Moerwijk or Oostflakkee. So is suppose that makes it even weirder than the weird island because it is part of neither Noord-Brabant nor Zuid-Holland.

* The weird island is something I forgot to add to a territory. I believe it was mentioned before.
* I will soon fix the anchor.
* Sewerrat, do you perhaps know of any military part of the harbour? If not, any touristic part that sends cruises to the Caribbean? And any of those in Rotterdam?

Missing connection: Zuidhorn - Kollumerland en Nieuwkruisland. (Groningen & Friesland)