Centre a pair of giant compasses on Brussel, capital of Flanders. Draw a circle with a radius of 300 kIn. It will enclose a number of major Western European cities: London, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Cologne, Bonn, Dusseldorf, Luxembourg, Paris. Cities in four different countries, in regions where four different languages are spoken, with four different cultures. The location of Flanders at the crossroads of several cultures says much about Flanders. It explains both why Flemish history was so communication sectors. This is obviously tumultuous and how Flanders came to related to its strategic situation as well as to possess such an incredibly wealthy heritage. As long ago as the Middle Ages, network, a major international airport in Flanders was already at the crossroads of ZaventelIl, regional airports in Antwerpen

Europe's most important trade routes. and Oostende and no fewer than four that was how Brugge, Gent, Antwerpen seaports: Antwerpen, Zeebrugge, Gent and Brussel developed into prosperous and and Oostende. flourishing cities. On the threshold of the new millepnium, Flanders is a region state within the federal kingdom of Belgium, which has its own Parliament and government. Flanders is also an economic key region with an export-oriented economy, particularly powerful in the transport and

The southern border of Flanders is not just any old border. North of the border, i.e. in Flanders, the language spoken is Dutch, a Germanic language. South of the line, people speak French, a Romance language. Brussel,
the bilingual capital of Belgium and Flanders, lies just north of this linguistic border, like an island in the Dutch-speaking territory. The linguistic border which divides Belgium down the middle is part of the great Western
European linguistic border, which in turn separates the Germanic North from the Romance South.

This border is at least fifteen centuries old and has remained almost unchanged for all that time. In the West, it shifted northwards during the course of the most recent centuries and now approximately corresponds to the border between West- Vlaanderen and France. North Western France - which used to be part of Flanders in the Middle Ages - was annexed by Louis XIV in the 17th century. However, the old Flemish dialect is still alive in many of the
villages. 

... and its consequences
For a long time, the language border never had a political function at all. In the mediaeval county of Flanders, the people spoke Dutch, while the ruling classes spoke both Dutch and French. When Belgium became independent in 1830, the situation was roughly the following: in the North (including Brussel), people only spoke Dutch dialects, while they only spoke French dialects in the South. The high society spoke French, which made matters even morecomplicated: beyond the issue of a geographical language border between North and South, there was a social linguistic border. Therefore, the struggle for recognition by Dutch was more than just a linguistic conflict: it was also a socio-political struggle for the emancipation of the Flemish people.

In the brand new Belgian State, French, the language of the social elite, immediately became the official language. French was used for administration, jurisdiction and education, even in Flanders. Flemish people
who wanted to receive secondary education were compelled to do so in French. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Flemish people were still governed in a language which many amongst them failed to understand.

Under pressure from the gradual democratisation process and the insistence of Flemish intellectuals and politicians, the Belgian Parliament approved language laws, first in 1932, then in 1962-1963, under which Flanders became a monolingual Dutch region, the Walloon Region remained exclusively French and Brussel formally became a bilingual city. But that was not to be the end of it.