VLAAMS GEWEST - Geography and history
Flanders is one of the three Belgian regions with its own government, parliament and administration. The other two are the regions of Brussels-Capital and Wallonia. Comprising the Dutch-speaking part of the country, the Flanders region has the largest population of the three (58%).
As a result of various state structure reforms over the last 30 years, Belgium has been transformed into a federal state, giving the regions more and more responsibilities. Apart from the environment, the Flanders government is also competent in other matters, such as the economy, employment, education and culture, agriculture, foreign trade, land planning, urban development, housing, public works, etc.
Flanders covers 44% of Belgian territory. It consists of 22 administrative districts and 308 municipalities. The official language is Dutch.
Apart from a few knolls and isolated hills left by denudation of the coastal plain (Kemmelberg is 156 m), the landscape is flat. Flanders is largely urbanised, with 24.9% of its area built up. Its light to heavy soils (sand, loam and clay) are generally fertile: 32% of the land is arable and there is little woodland (8.0%).
The mild west-coast climate is subject to widely fluctuating weather conditions caused by the prevailing cyclonic disturbances.
Flanders lies in the centre of the densely populated and prosperous rectangle formed by Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the Ruhr region of Germany and the industrial belts of northern France and southeast England.
A productive, open economy
Some of the region's advantages are:
a favourable geographical location with an appropriate transport infrastructure: motorways and expressways forming or intersecting some of Europe's major north-south (E9, E411, E17) and east-west (E40, E313) routes; a very dense railway network; three seaports (Antwerp, Ghent and Zeebrugge) serving an extensive European hinterland; Brussels international airport;
an open economy (almost two-thirds of industrial production is for export) and an investment-friendly climate for the establishment of multinational companies;
a stable and productive industrial infrastructure based on continuous renewal of technologies, a well-trained polyglot work-force and a good social climate.
There are also some disadvantages:
a gradual decline in the birth rate means an ageing population and a potential disruption of the region's economic, social and cultural balance;
although the unemployment rate fell steadily in the second half of the 1990s unemployment is still high compared with the otherwise strong performance of the Flanders' economy.
An urbanised region with a central focus
Flanders is a densely populated, urbanised region.
Its population and economic, social and cultural activities are largely concentrated in nine municipalities, each with at least 80 000 inhabitants. Antwerp is at the top of the list; followed by Ghent. Brussels, the national capital with its bilingual constitution and lying within but administratively separate from Flanders, is home to large numbers of Flemings who belong to the Flemish community if not to the Flanders' region.
These nine urban districts are geographically fairly evenly distributed and interconnected by road and rail networks.
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