Belgium
POPULATION 10,274,595
ROMAN CATHOLIC 85.6 percent
MUSLIM 3 percent
ANGLICAN AND OTHER PROTESTANT 1.7 percent
ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN 0.3 percent
JEWISH 0.1 percent
NONAFFILIATED AND OTHER 9.3 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
The Kingdom of Belgium is a small European state bordered on the northeast by the Netherlands, on the east by Germany and Luxembourg, on the south and west by France, and on the northwest by the North Sea. It has been predominantly Roman Catholic since the eighth century.
The country is divided into three regions: Flanders (5.9 million inhabitants), Wallonia (3.3 million inhabitants), and Brussels (960,000 inhabitants). It is also divided into three communities: Dutch-speaking Flanders, the French-speaking community in Wallonia and Brussels, and the German-speaking community in Wallonia near the German border.
During the sixteenth century, at the time of the Protestant Reformation, Luther and Calvin had a substantial following in some villages and particularly in the major cities, such as Ghent and Antwerp. The Spanish emperors, as the landlords of the Low Lands, suppressed this "revolt," and most Protestants emigrated to the Netherlands. The emigrants included about 40 percent of the population of Antwerp, at the time the most important city of northern Europe. In the course of the nineteenth century some Belgians, mostly from the small educated class and influenced by the French Enlightenment, became "freethinkers." A small percentage of them joined the anticlerical Freemasons.
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