| Limburg (Dutch: Limburg) |
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| — Province of Belgium — | |||
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| Country | Belgium | ||
| Region | Flemish Region | ||
| Capital | Hasselt | ||
| Government | |||
| • Governor | Herman Reynders | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 2,414 km2 (932.1 sq mi) | ||
| Population (1 January 2010)[1] | |||
| • Total | 838,505 | ||
| • Density | 347.4/km2 (899.6/sq mi) | ||
| Website | Official site | ||
Limburg (Dutch: ) is the easternmost province of modern Flanders, which is one of the three main political and cultural sub-divisions of modern Belgium. It is located west of the river Meuse (Dutch Maas). It borders on (clockwise from the north) the Dutch provinces of North Brabant and Limburg and the Belgian provinces of Liège, Flemish Brabant and Antwerp. Its capital is Hasselt. It has an area of 2,414 km² which is divided into three arrondissements (arrondissementen in Dutch) containing 44 municipalities. Among them, apart from Hasselt, are Borgloon, the early medieval capital, Genk, a major economic centre, Diepenbeek, home to Hasselt University, and Tongeren, known as the oldest city in Belgium because it was the only Roman city in the province. Belgian Limburg was never called Limburg until the 19th century, its name being a result of post-Napoleonic politics. The same region was historically called Loon.
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As in all Flemish provinces, the official language is Dutch, but two municipalities: Herstappe and Voeren are to a certain extent allowed to use French to communicate with their citizens. Such municipalities are called the municipalities with language facilities in Belgium.
Several variations of Limburgish are also still actively used, these being a diverse group of dialects which share features in common with both German and Dutch. Limburg mijn Vaderland is the official anthem of both Belgian and Dutch Limburg, and has versions in various dialects of Limburgish, varying from accents closer to standard Dutch in the west, to more distinctive dialects near the Maas. Outside of the two Limburgs related dialects or languages are found stretched out towards the nearby Ruhr valley region of Germany. And there are also related dialects around Aachen and in the extreme north of the province of Liège.
As in the rest of Flanders a high level of multi-lingualism is found in the population. Limburg is close to Germany and Wallonia, and because of the natural political, cultural and economics links, French and German have long been important second languages in the area. English has also now become a language which is widely understood and used in business and cultural activities, and is supplanting French in this regard.
Veldeke, the medieval property of Hendrik van Veldeke, was near Hasselt, along the Demer river, to the west of Kuringen. He is one of the first authors known by name in both Dutch and German.
Belgian Limburg is crossed east to west by the Albert Canal, which runs a similar path to the river Demer. This river's drainage basin covers most of the south of the province.
South of the Albert Canal and the river Demer, is the northern part of the Hesbaye region (Dutch Haspengouw), with fertile soils, farming and fruit-growing, and historically the higher population density. The hilliness increases in the southest, including the detached Voeren part of Limburg.
North of the Albert Canal and the river Demer, is part of the Campine (Dutch Kempen) region, with sandy soils, heathlands, and forests. This area has historically also been a relatively low populated area, until coal-mining area started in the 19th century, attracting immigration from other areas, including immigration from the Mediterranean.
The east of the province corresponds to the western bank of the river Maas (French Meuse).
As mentioned above southern Limburg contains Tongeren which is often called the oldest city in Belgium because of its relative importance as a Roman city. It was a major town on several notable east-west Roman routes including Amiens-Bavay-Tongeren-Maastricht-Heerlen-Cologne, which was a very important route, and Boulogne-Kortrijk-Tienen-Tongeren, which ran just to the south of the modern main road running Tienen-St Truiden-Borgloon-Tongeren, through the villages of Overhespen, Helshoven, and Bommershoven. The city, which is in the southeast of Belgian Limburg, was capital of a Roman administrative region, named after a tribal grouping, the "civitas Tungrorum" (city of the Tungri). The region it controlled is thought to have included all or most of Belgian Limburg, and possibly also the southern extremity of Dutch Limburg (south of the river Geul). Under the Romans, the Tungri civitas was first a part of Gallia Belgica, and later split out with the more militarized border regions between it and the Rhine, to become Germania Inferior, and still later it became part of Germania Secunda.[2]
Before the Romans, Tongeren (Aduatuca Tungrorum) is also generally considered to be the same as the Aduatuca, which had been a fort of the Eburones who fought Julius Caesar under their leader Ambiorix. This place is also associated with the neighbours of the Eburones, the Aduatuci, who also fought Caesar.[3] The Eburones and Aduatuci were nations in the Belgic area of the Gaulish sphere of cultures described by Caesar in his De Bello Gallico. These Belgic tribes were strongly influenced not only by the native tribes to their south and west, such as the Treveri and Nervi, but also by Germanic peoples to their north and east. The Belgae, or at least some of them, possibly spoke a Germanic language (as Flemish is today), or at least had come to speak one by the time the Romans encountered them. Caesar described both the Eburones as one of the tribes known as the Germani cisrhenani, and the Aduatuci as the descendants of the Cimbri and Teutones who came from Denmark. The Tungri, the name of the people in the area in Roman imperial times, are generally accepted as being speakers of a Germanic language, descended from people who had come from the direction of the Rhine, possibly including the Eburones. Tacitus equates them to the earliest tribes of "Germani" to have settled in Gaul, implying that they were substantially still descended from the Germani cisrhenani, and also states that this name had been spread to cover a grouping of different tribes, for example those in Germany. The Tungri participated in the Revolt of the Batavi against the Romans.[4]
In late Roman and early medieval times, the northern or "Kempen" part of Belgian Limburg became a more separate area, referred to as Toxandria (an older name, referring to a tribe of the civitas Tungrorum which have some have suggested could be a Latin translation of the name Eburones, both apparently referring to Yew[5]). It became virtually empty because of Germanic plundering, and was then settled and ruled by incoming Salian Franks from Germany. These were amongst the first of a wave of Germanic tribes to become strongly established within the late Roman empire, and the ancestors of the Merovingians. The southern or "Haspengouw" part of Belgian Limburg remained more heavily Romanised, but eventually became a core land of the Franks. The two east-west Roman routes through Tongeren, mentioned above, became a front line of defense for a while, and are sometimes referred to as the Limes Belgicus. Gregory of Tours reports that it was from the area of Toxandria bordering Tongeren that Chlodio, in the 5th century, launched the Franks into military campaigns of conquest in northern Gaul, soon to become France or "Francia", the country of the Franks. By the 9th century, the Frankish Carolingian empire eventually included not only the region of Belgium and northern France, but also eventually much of Western Europe.
Under the Franks, the region begins to be referred to with new placenames, which last into the Middle Ages and in some cases into modern times. A gouw or gau was a Frankish administrative region, translated into Latin as pagus, and roughly corresponding to English "county" or "shire". The northern Kempen was still referred to as Toxandria. The eastern part of Belgian Limburg, bordering the river Maas or Meuse, was sometimes referred to as the "Maasgau" (Maasau). The southern part, received its modern name of Haspengouw, found in forms such as Haspinga, pagus Hasbaniensis or Hasbania, in old documents such as the Treaty of Meersen. The ruler of a gouw, if it had a single ruler, was typically a count or graf. There were counts of Hesbaye in Carolingian times, but their exact territories are not known with certainty. Early Christianity was also in first this romanised southeastern corner of Limburg, around Tongeren. Together with nearby Maastricht and Liège, this was the area of activity of St Servatius and later St Lambert. St Lambert lived at the time of Willibrord, around 700AD and like him he is said to have preached the gospel as a missionary to the pagans who were still dominant to the north of this region. Out of these three romanised and early Christian cities, Liège became the eventual seat of the bishop in the Middle Ages. Another early saint in the south of Limburg was St Trudo.
After the death of Charlemagne, Limburg was part of the Lotharingian division of frankish Europe which lay between France and Germany and stretched to Italy. After the death of its first ruler, Lothar, it was only slowly integrated into Eastern Francia, which was to become the Holy Roman empire. In the period around 881 and 882 the areas along the Maas and in the Haspengouw were plundered by Normans, who established a base at Asselt on the Maas, today in Roermond in Dutch Limburg. The emperor Charles the Fat tried to negotiate with them. In 1891, the Normans were back fought several times with forces of Arnulf of Carinthia, who had taken control of most of the eastern Frankish empire at that time.
Belgian Limburg corresponds closely to the medieval territory of the County of Loon (French Looz), which originally centred on the fortified town of Borgloon, which had somehow become the centre of power in the Haspengouw during the early Middle Ages, taking over from earlier counties such as the Hocht, near the Maas (Hocht itself is in Lanaken today), and Avernas, near St Truiden (Avernas itself being in Hannut today). From this starting point it came to possess a larger part of Haspengouw, and also the large part of the Kempen which the province contains today. As part of Loon, Belgian Limburg eventually became subject, not only spiritually but also politically, to the Prince Bishops of Liège.
Loon, and the rest of the prince-bishopric of Liège, were not joined politically with the rest of what would become Belgium until the French revolution. Nevertheless, in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries the population of Loon was constantly and badly affected by the wars involving neighbouring Brabant and Dutch Limburg, including the Eighty Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession, and even the Brabant Revolution against the unpopular reforms of the Emperor Joseph II. During this period the region's episcopal government was often unable to maintain law and order, and the economy of the area was often desperately bad, affected by plundering by soldiers and gangs of thieves such as the "Bokkenrijders". Nevertheless the population contained strongly conservative catholic elements, and not only supported the Brabant revolution, but also rebelled unsuccessfully against the revolutionary French regime in the Peasants' War of 1798.
Almost none of the modern Belgian province Limburg was ever part of the nearby Duchy of Limburg, and only a small part of the area of the current Dutch Limburg was. However, Limburg's modern name derives from this Duchy, which originally centred upon the fortified castle town known as Limbourg, situated on the river Vesdre in the Ardennes, now in the Wallonian province of Liège. The modern Limburg region, containing the Belgian and Dutch provinces of that name, were first united within one province while under the power of revolutionary France, and later the Napoleonic empire, but then under the name of the French department of the Lower Meuse (Maas). Limbourg the town was not in this region, but a small part of its old Duchy was. Following the Napoleonic Era, the great powers (the United Kingdom, Prussia, the Austrian Empire, the Russian Empire and France) granted the region to the new United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815. A new province was formed and was to receive the name "Maastricht", after its capital. The first king, William I, who did not want the name Limbourg to be lost, given its high status of being an ancient Duchy, insisted that the name be changed to the "Province of Limburg". It is only in border areas like Voeren that modern Limburg has any areas which were historically politically connected to the old Duchy, in that case through being within the county of Dalhem.
When both the Dutch and the French speaking Catholic regions in the south of the new kingdom split away from the mainly Calvinist, Dutch north in the Belgian Revolution of 1830, the province of Limburg was at first almost entirely under Belgian rule, and its status became unclear. Dutch armies entered the area during some of this period, and there was armed conflict at Hasselt for example. Finally, in 1839 Limburg was split into so-called Dutch Limburg and Belgian Limburg. Only Dutch Limburg has even a small part of the original Duchy of Limburg.
Belgian Limburg became officially Flemish when all provinces in Belgium came under control of linguistically defined institutional regions in 1962. In the case of Voeren, surrounded by French speaking parts of Belgium, and having a significant population of French speakers, this was not without controversy.
Only in 1967, the Catholic Church created a bishopric of Hasselt, separate form the bishopric of Liège.
Coal mining became an important industry in the 19th century, but has now ended in Belgian Limburg. Nevertheless this laid the basis for a more complex modern economy and community. In the 20th century, Limburg became a centre for secondary industry, attracting Ford, who still have a major production centre in Genk, and the electronics company Philips, who had a major operation in Kiewit.
Many areas such as Genk continue to have a lot of heavy and chemical industry, but emphasis has moved towards encouraging innovation. The old Philips plant is now the cite of a Research Campus, and the Hasselt University in Diepenbeek has a science park attached to it.
In many parts of Limburg, the population density levels remain relatively low for Belgium and tourism is being actively promoted, with publicized attractions including Limburg's claim to be "Bicycle Paradise" (Fietsparadijs), and walking in nature reserves such as the "High Kempen National Park". [6][7] In the south, the Haspengouw (Hesbaye) is predominantly situated in Limburg, and is now Belgium's major area for fruit growing.
The region today promotes itself as a centre for trade in the heart of industrialised Europe. It is part of the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion, which represents a partnership between the province, and neighbouring provinces in Germany, the Netherlands and Wallonia.
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Arrondissement Hasselt: |
Arrondissement Maaseik: |
Arrondissement Tongeren: |
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| Arrondissement Hasselt | Arrondissement Maaseik | Arrondissement Tongeren |
Not to be confused with, though related to, the Dutch province of Limburg.
An internationally well-known place in Limburg is the racing circuit Terlaemen in Zolder, upon which two world championships in road-cycling have been held, as well as several Formula One car races, and other international events.
Sports & Entertainment
The following list contains all governors of the province of Limburg since 1815.[8]
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