Romance Flanders

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The Romance Flanders or Gallicante Flanders is the part of the county of Flanders where people speak traditionally romance languages (then called "Walloon") like varieties of picard. It is actually straddling France and Belgium.

[edit] Name

It was also called in early modern English Welch Flanders or Gallike Flanders. The original french name is Flandre Gallicane or Flandre Gallicante, coming from the latin term : Gallo Flandria or Flandria Gallica.

There is also the term Walloon Flanders but it should not be entirely used to designate that region : it refers only to a part of the Gallicante Flanders. It refers to the part of Romance Flanders that belongs to the Union of Arras in 1579 and later to the part under the French crown after the Treaties of Nijmegen. Its use is political, not linguistic as Romance Flanders or Gallicante Flanders.

[edit] Territory

• In France :
  • The Lilloise Flanders (in French, in Dutch Rijsels-Vlaanderen) ;
  • The northern part of the Scarpe plain with the Pévèle and the bailiwick of Douai (Douaisis);

• In Belgium :
  • The historical Tournaisis (in Dutch Doornikse);
  • The regions of Mouscron and Comines, bilingual communes of (or part of) the old castelleny of Courtray;

[edit] See also

• Walloon Flanders
• Maritime Flanders