The majority, at 58% of the total population, are ethnically Flemish, the Dutch-speaking population primarily found in the northern half of the country. The other major group are the Walloons, who speak French and live in the southern half of Belgium.
The most obvious difference when talking with or listening to speakers of Dutch and Flemish is the pronunciation. Even to the untrained ear, the two dialects sound very different. While Flemish tends towards French pronunciations, Dutch in the Netherlands has more of an English feel.
Belgium is also home to two main linguistic communities: the Dutch-speaking Flemish Community, which constitutes about 60 percent of the population, and the French-speaking French Community, which constitutes about 40 percent of the population; a small German-speaking Community, comprising around one percent of the ...
People from Belgium are called Belgians. However, within Belgium, people may identify more closely with their linguistic communities. Those from the Dutch-speaking Flanders region are called Flemish, while those from the French-speaking Wallonia region are referred to as Walloons.
Flemish people or Flemings (Dutch: Vlamingen [ˈvlaːmɪŋə(n)]) are one of three Belgian main ethnic groups native to Flanders, Belgium, who speak Flemish Dutch.
Many Flemish people can also speak French as a second language. Like the Dutch spoken in Flanders, Belgian French is mostly similar to the dialect spoken in France, but there are small differences in vocabulary and pronunciation.
Belgium's "30% tax ruling" refers to a special tax regime for expatriates and inpatriates, allowing employers to reimburse certain recurring relocation costs tax-free, generally up to 30% of gross remuneration, capped at €90,000 annually, plus other specific costs like school fees, replacing older schemes for many. This regime aims to attract international talent, exempting these allowances from tax and social security, with conditions like minimum salary thresholds (€75k for non-researchers) and a 5-year duration (extendable).
“Hallo” is the Dutch way of saying hello and greeting someone. This allows you to initiate a conversation with someone in Belgium and the Netherlands. “Goedendag” is the most formal greeting that can be used throughout the day without any variation.
Many believe that these two languages are one in the same, or that their only difference is their geographical location. In essence, a Dutch speaker will be able to understand a Flemish speaker and respond back, and the same goes for the opposite.
The name "Belgium" was adopted for the country, the word being derived from Gallia Belgica, a Roman province in the northernmost part of Gaul that, before Roman invasion in 100 BC, was inhabited by the Belgae, a mix of Celtic and Germanic peoples.
What is the difference between Flemish and Wallonia?
On the one hand, the very Catholic Flemish society was characterized by an economy centred on agriculture; on the other hand, Wallonia was the centre of the continental European Industrial Revolution, where classical liberal and socialist movements were rapidly emerging.
The term Caucasian as a racial category was introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history – notably Christoph Meiners in 1785 and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1795—it had originally referred in a narrow sense to the native inhabitants of the Caucasus region.
We use the American Community Survey to determine the order of race and ethnic groups for this principle, and the order from rarest to most common is: Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Black/African American, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian, Hispanic/Latinx, and White.
The Chinese people, or simply Chinese, are people or ethnic groups identified with China, usually through ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, social construct or other affiliation.
@Sabri_Dahl Roughly speaking 60% Dutch and 40% French. Belgium was only founded in 1830, so has no historic “own language”. It was founded in a region comprising Dutch and French speaking areas, so it has those two main languages.
At the core of the issue is the fact that western Europe's Germanic/Romance linguistic fault line runs east/west across the entire country. The northern half of Belgium speaks Flemish (a Germanic language more commonly known as Dutch) while the southern half speaks French (a romance language derived from Latin).
In the French-speaking region of Belgium, they have a unique way of saying the number 70. Instead of saying "soixante-dix" like in France, they say "septante" (and in Switzerland too!).
Furthermore, there is no language called 'Belgian'. Many people in the Flemish speaking part of Belgium also have a great level of English and so you can easily get around by just speaking English, though learning a little bit of French or Flemish is always appreciated.
