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Liège ( ; "Liège" (US) and ; ; ; ) is a city and municipality in the Belgian region of Wallonia, and the capital of the eponymous province. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from borders with the Netherlands (Maastricht is about to the north) and with Germany (Aachen is about north-east). In Liège, the Meuse meets the river Ourthe. The city is part of the sillon industriel, the former industrial backbone of Wallonia. It still is the principal economic and cultural centre of the region.
The municipality consists of the following Deelgemeente: Angleur, Bressoux, Chênée, Glain, Grivegnée, Jupille-sur-Meuse, Liège proper, Rocourt, and Wandre. In January 2022, Liège had 195,278 inhabitants. The metropolitan area, including the outer commuter zone, covers an area of 1,879 km2 (725 sq mi) and had a total population of 749,110 on 1 January 2008. Statistics Belgium; Population de droit par commune au 1 janvier 2008 ( excel-file) Population of all municipalities in Belgium on 1 January 2008. Retrieved on 2008-10-19. Statistics Belgium; De Belgische Stadsgewesten 2001 ( pdf-file) Definitions of metropolitan areas in Belgium. The metropolitan area of Liège is divided into three levels. First, the central agglomeration ( agglomeratie) with 480,513 inhabitants (1 January 2008). Adding the closest surroundings ( banlieue) gives a total of 641,591. And, including the outer commuter zone ( forensenwoonzone) the population is 810,983. Retrieved on 2008-10-19. This includes a total of 52 municipalities, among others, Herstal and Seraing. Liège ranks as the third most populous urban area in Belgium, after Brussels and Antwerp, and the fourth municipality after Antwerp, Ghent and Charleroi. The city is part of the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion.
Until 17 September 1946, the city's name was written Liége, with the acute accent instead of a grave accent. The Book Collector. Vol. 8 (1959), p. 10.Room, Adrian. 2006. Placenames of the World. 2nd ed. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., p. 219."Liège". 1991. Encyclopædia Britannica: Micropædia. Vol. 7. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, p. 344. Apparently, this official change did not extend to the demonym, which persists as Liégeois/Liégeoise.
In French, Liège is associated with the epithet la cité ardente ("the fervent city"). This term, which emerged around 1905, originally referred to the city's history of rebellions against Burgundian rule, but was appropriated to refer to its economic dynamism during the Industrial Revolution.
A few centuries later, the city became the capital of a prince-bishopric, which lasted from 985 till 1794. The first prince-bishop, Notger, transformed the city into a major intellectual and ecclesiastical centre, which maintained its cultural importance during the Middle Ages. Pope Clement VI recruited several musicians from Liège to perform in the Papal court at Avignon, thereby sanctioning the practice of polyphony in the religious realm. The city was renowned for its many churches, the oldest of which, St Martin's, dates from 682. Although nominally part of the Holy Roman Empire, in practice it possessed a large degree of independence.
In 1345, the citizens of Liège rebelled against Prince-Bishop Engelbert III de la Marck, their ruler at the time, and defeated him in battle near the city. Shortly after, a unique political system formed in Liège, whereby the city's 32 shared sole political control of the municipal government. Each person on the register of each guild was eligible to participate, and each guild's voice was equal, making it the most democratic system that the Low Countries had ever known. The system spread to Utrecht, and left a democratic spirit in Liège that survived the Middle Ages. Henri Pirenne, Belgian Democracy, Its Early History, Translated by J.V. Saunders, The University press, Hull 1915, pp. 140–141. Available online: Belgian Democracy, Its Early History pp. 72–73.
At the end of the Liège Wars, a rebellion took place against rule from Burgundy. In 1468 Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy, witnessed by King Louis XI of France, captured and largely destroyed the city after a bitter siege which was ended with a successful surprise attack. The rebellion figures prominently in the plot of Walter Scott's 1823 novel Quentin Durward.
The Prince-Bishopric of Liège was technically part of the Holy Roman Empire which, after 1477, came under the rule of the . The reign of prince-bishop Érard de La Marck (1506–1538) coincides with the dawn of the Renaissance.
During the Counter-Reformation, the diocese of Liège was split and progressively lost its role as a regional power. By the 17th century, the bishopric of Liège became a virtual Secundogeniture of the Bavarian royal house of Wittelsbach, with second sons of the Bavarian monarch ruling as prince-bishop. Beginning with the ascension of Ernest of Bavaria in 1581, Bavarian princes ruled over Cologne, Münster, and other bishoprics in the northwest of the Holy Roman Empire in addition to Liège. Ferdinand of Bavaria (bishop) ruled from 1612 to 1650, and Maximilian Henry of Bavaria ruled from 1650 to 1688.
In 1636, during the Thirty Years' War, the city was besieged by Imperial forces under Johann von Werth from April to July. The army, mainly consisting of mercenaries, extensively and viciously plundered the surrounding bishopric during the siege.Helfferich, Tryntje, The Thirty Years War: A Documentary History (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 292.
In the middle of the eighteenth century the ideas of the French Encyclopédistes began to gain popularity in the region. Bishop François-Charles de Velbrück (1772–84), encouraged their propagation, thus prepared the way for the Liège Revolution which started in the episcopal city on 18 August 1789 and led to the creation of the Republic of Liège before it was invaded by counter-revolutionary forces of the Habsburg monarchy in 1791.
In the course of the , the French Revolutionary Army took the city and imposed strongly anticlerical regime, destroying St. Lambert's Cathedral. The overthrow of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège was confirmed in 1801 by the Concordat co-signed by Napoléon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII. France lost the city in 1815 when the Congress of Vienna awarded it to the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Dutch rule lasted only until 1830, when the Belgian Revolution led to the establishment of an independent, Catholic and neutral Belgium which incorporated Liège. After this, Liège developed rapidly into a major industrial city which became one of continental Europe's first large-scale steel making centres. The Walloon Jacquerie of 1886 saw a large-scale working class revolt. No less than 6,000 regular troops were called into the city to quell the unrest,See The New York Times, published 23 March 1886 while strike spread through the whole sillon industriel.
Liège's fortifications were redesigned by Henri Alexis Brialmont in the 1880s and a chain of twelve forts was constructed around the city to provide defence in depth. This presented a major obstacle to the Imperial German Army in 1914, whose Schlieffen Plan relied on being able to quickly pass through the Meuse valley and the Ardennes en route to France. The German invasion of Belgium on 5 August 1914 soon reached Liège, which was defended by 30,000 troops under General Gérard Leman in the Battle of Liège. The forts initially held off General Alexander von Kluck's German First Army of about 100,000 men but were pulverised into submission by a five-day bombardment by heavy artillery, including thirty-two 21 cm mortars and two German 42 cm Big Bertha . Due to faulty planning of the protection of the underground defence tunnels beneath the main citadel, one direct artillery hit caused a huge explosion, which eventually led to the surrender of the Belgian forces. The Belgian resistance was shorter than had been intended, but the twelve days of delay caused by the siege nonetheless contributed to the eventual failure of the German invasion of France. The city was subsequently occupied by the Germans until the end of the war. Liège received the Légion d'Honneur for its resistance in 1914.
As part of Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg's Septemberprogramm, Berlin planned to annexe Liege under the name Lüttich to the German Empire in any post-war peace agreement.Watson, Alexander. Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918. Penguin, 2014. p.258-59
After the war ended, the Royal Question came to the fore, since many saw King Leopold III as collaborating with the Germans during the war. In July 1950, André Renard, leader of the Liègian FGTB launched the General strike against Leopold III of Belgium and "seized control over the city of Liège".Erik Jones, Economic Adjustment and Political Transformation in Small States, Oxford Press, 2008, p. 121 978-0-19-920833-3 The strike ultimately led to Leopold's abdication.
Liège began to suffer from a relative decline of its industry, particularly the coal industry, and later the steel industry, producing high levels of unemployment and stoking social tension. During the 1960–1961 Winter General Strike, disgruntled workers went on a rampage and severely damaged the central railway station Guillemins. The unrest was so intense that "army troops had to wade through , trees, concrete blocks, car and crane wrecks to advance. Streets were dug up. Liège saw the worst fighting on 6 January 1961. In all, 75 people were injured during seven hours of street battles." Political History of Belgium: From 1830 Onwards, Academic and Scientific Publishers, Brussels, 2009, p. 278.
On 6 December 1985, the city's courthouse was heavily damaged and one person was killed in a bomb attack by a lawyer.
Liège is also known as a traditionally socialism city. In 1991, powerful Socialist André Cools, a former Deputy Prime Minister, was gunned down in front of his girlfriend's apartment. Many suspected that the assassination was related to a corruption scandal which swept the Socialist Party, and the Belgian Federal Government in general, after Cools' death. Two men were sentenced to twenty years in jail in 2004, for involvement in Cools' murder.
Liège has shown some signs of economic recovery in recent years with the opening up of borders within the European Union, surging steel prices, and improved administration. Several new shopping centres have been built, and numerous repairs carried out.
On 13 December 2011, there was a grenade and gun attack at Place Saint-Lambert. An attacker, later identified as Nordine Amrani, aged 33, armed with grenades and an assault rifle, attacked people waiting at a bus stop. There were six fatalities, including the attacker (who shot himself), and 123 people were injured.
On 29 May 2018, two female police officers and one civilian—a 22-year-old man—were shot dead by a gunman near a café on Boulevard d'Avroy in central Liège. The attacker then began firing at the officers in an attempt to escape, injuring a number of them "around their legs", before he was shot dead. Belgian broadcaster RTBF said the gunman was temporarily released from prison on 28 May where he had been serving time on drug offences. The incident is currently being treated as terrorism.
The city is a major educational hub in Belgium. There are 42,000 pupils attending more than 24 schools. The University of Liège, founded in 1817, has 20,000 students.
| Neighboring country | 4,999 | 2.56% |
| EU27 (excluding neighboring country) | 19,077 | 9.77% |
| Outside EU 27 | 46,514 | 23.81% |
| Neighboring country | 5,077 | 2.6% |
| EU27 (excluding neighboring country) | 11,089 | 5.68% |
| Outside EU 27 | 22,968 | 11.76% |
Liège hosts one of the oldest and biggest in Belgium, and the oldest kermesse, the Foire de Liège held each year from 28 October.
Liège is renowned for its nightlife. Within the pedestrian zone behind the Opera House, there is a square city block known locally as Le Carré (the Square) with many lively pubs which are reputed to remain open until the last customer leaves (typically around 6 am). Another active area is the Place du Marché.
The "Batte" market is where most locals visit on Sundays. The outdoor market goes along the river Meuse and also attracts many visitors to Liège. The market typically runs from early morning to 2 o'clock in the afternoon every Sunday year long. Produce, clothing, and snack vendors are the main concentration of the market.
Liège is home to the Opéra Royal de Wallonie () and the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège (OPRL) ().
The city annually hosts a significant electro-rock festival Les Ardentes and jazz festival Jazz à Liège.
Liège has active alternative cinemas, Le Churchill, Le Parc and Le Sauvenière. There are also two mainstream cinemas, the Kinepolis multiplexes.
Liège also has a particular Walloon language dialect, sometimes said to be one of Belgium's most distinctive. There is a large Italian community, and Italian can be heard in many places.
In spring, Liège hosts the start and finish of the annual Liège–Bastogne–Liège cycling race, one of the spring classics and the oldest of the five monuments of cycling. The race starts in the centre of Liège, before heading south to Bastogne and returning north to finish in the industrial suburb of Ans. Traveling through the hilly Ardennes, it is one of the longest and most arduous races of the season.
Liège is the only city that has hosted stages of all three cycling Grand Tours. It staged the start of the 1973 and 2006 Giro d'Italia; as well as the Grand Départ of the 2004, 2012, and 2017 Tour de France making it the first city outside France to host the Grand Départ twice or more times. In 2009, the Vuelta a España visited Liège after four stages in the Netherlands, making Liège the first city that has hosted stages of all three cycling Grand Tours.
Liège is also home to boxer Ermano Fegatilli, the current European Boxing Union Super Featherweight champion.Fightnews (2011-2-26) Fegatilli takes Foster's Euro belt Fightnews.com. Retrieved 2011-3-31
The economy of the region is now diversified; the most important centres are: Mechanical industries (Aircraft engine and Spacecraft propulsion), space technology, information technology, biotechnology and the production of water, beer, and chocolate. Liège has an important group of headquarters dedicated to high-technology, such as Safran, which manufactures pieces for the Airbus A380 or the rocket Ariane 5. Other stand-out sectors include Amós which manufactures optical components for and Drytec, which produces compressed air dryers. Liège also has many other electronic companies such as SAP AG, EVS, Gillam, AnB, Balteau, IP Trade. Other prominent businesses are the global leader in light armament FN Herstal, the beer company Jupiler, the chocolate company Galler, and the water and soda companies Spa and Chaudfontaine. A science park southeast of the city, near the University of Liège campus, houses spin-offs and high technology businesses.
On the surface the only possible rescue was held to be via Mamonster. A heading was driven towards Beaujone with all possible speed, including blasting. The trapped miners heard the rescuers and vice versa. Five days after the accident communication was possible and the rescuers worked in darkness to avoid the risk of a firedamp explosion. By 7pm that evening an opening was made, of tunnel had been dug by hand in five days. All of the 74 miners in Goffin's part survived and were brought to the surface.
Liège was once home to a network of trams. However, they were removed by 1967 in favour of the construction of a new metro system. A prototype of the metro was built and a tunnel was dug underneath the city, but the metro was never built. Later, it was decided to build a modern tramway. By 2019, construction of the line was underway, but would experience various setbacks and delays. The new tramway opened on 28 April 2025.
See article Trams in Liège.
[[Volgograd]], Russia (1959) Suspended due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
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