Product Code Database
Wallonia ( ; ; or Wallonie ), officially the Walloon Region ( ; ), is one of the three regions of Belgium—along with Flemish Region and Brussels. Covering the southern portion of the country, Wallonia is primarily French-speaking. It accounts for 55% of Belgium's territory, but only a third of its population. The Walloon Region and the French Community of Belgium, which is the political entity responsible for matters related mainly to culture and education, are independent concepts, because the French Community of Belgium encompasses both Wallonia and the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region but not the German-speaking Community of Belgium, which administers nine municipalities in Eastern Wallonia.
During the Industrial Revolution, Wallonia was second only to the United Kingdom in industrialization, capitalizing on its extensive deposits of coal and iron. This brought the region wealth, and from the beginning of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century, Wallonia was the more prosperous half of Belgium. Since World War II, the importance of heavy industry has greatly diminished, and the Flemish Region has exceeded Wallonia in wealth as Wallonia has declined economically. Wallonia now suffers from high unemployment and has a significantly lower GDP per capita than Flanders. The economic inequalities and linguistic divide between the two are major sources of political conflicts in Belgium and a major factor in Flemish separatism.
The capital of Wallonia is Namur, and the most populous city is Charleroi. Most of Wallonia's major cities and two-thirds of its population lie along the east–west aligned Sambre and Meuse valley, the former industrial backbone of Belgium. To the north of this valley, Wallonia lies on the Central Belgian Plateau, which, like Flanders, is a relatively flat and agriculturally fertile area. The south and southeast of Wallonia is made up of the Ardennes, an expanse of forested highland that is less densely populated.
There is a German language minority in eastern Wallonia, resulting from the annexation of three Eupen-Malmedy previously part of the German Empire at the conclusion of World War I. This community represents less than 1% of the Belgian population. It forms the German-speaking Community of Belgium, which has its own government and parliament for culture-related issues.
Wallonia borders Flanders and the Netherlands (the province of Limburg) in the north, France (Grand Est and Hauts-de-France) to the south and west, and Germany (North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate) and Luxembourg (Capellen, Clervaux, Esch-sur-Alzette, Redange and Wiltz) to the east. Wallonia has been a member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie since 1980.
Wallonia is a cognate of terms such as Wales, Cornwall and Wallachia.(French) Albert Henry, Histoire des mots Wallons et Wallonie, , Coll. «Notre histoire», Mont-sur-Marchienne, 1990, 3rd ed. (1st ed. 1965), footnote 13 p. 86. The Germanic word Walha, meaning the strangers, referred to Gallic or Celtic people. Wallonia is named after the Walloons, a group of locals who natively speak Romance languages. In Middle Dutch (and French), the term Walloons included both historical secular Walloon principalities, as well as the French-speaking population of the Prince-Bishopric of LiègeFootnote: In medieval French, the word Liégeois referred to all the inhabitants of the Principality vis-à-vis the other inhabitants of the Low Countries, the word Walloon being applied specifically to the French-speaking inhabitants vis-à-vis the other inhabitants of the Principality. or the whole population of the Romanic sprachraum within the Middle Ages Low Countries.
The Merovingian Franks gradually gained control of the region during the 5th century, under Clovis I. Due to the fragmentation of the former Roman Empire, Vulgar Latin regionally developed along different lines and evolved into several langue d'oïl dialects, which in Wallonia became Picard language, Walloon language and Lorrain language. The oldest surviving text written in a langue d'oïl, the Sequence of Saint Eulalia, has characteristics of these three languages and was likely written in or very near to what is now Wallonia around 880 AD. Maurice Delbouille Romanité d'oïl Les origines : la langue – les plus anciens textes in La Wallonie, le pays et les hommes Tome I (Lettres, arts, culture), La Renaissance du Livre, Bruxelles,1977, pp.99–107. From the 4th to the 7th century, the Franks established several settlements, probably mostly in the north of the province where the romanization was less advanced and some Germanic trace was still present. The language border (that now splits Belgium in the middle) began to crystallize between 700 under the reign of the and and around 1000 after the Ottonian Renaissance.Kramer, pg. 59, citing French-speaking cities, with Liège as the largest one, appeared along the Meuse, while Gallo-Roman cities such as Tongeren, Maastricht and Aachen became Germanized. The Carolingian dynasty dethroned the Merovingians in the 8th century. In 843, the Treaty of Verdun gave the territory of present-day Wallonia to Middle Francia, which would shortly fragment, with the region passing to Lotharingia. On Lotharingia's breakup in 959, the present-day territory of Belgium became part of Lower Lotharingia, which then fragmented into rival principalities and duchies by 1190. Literary Latin, which was taught in schools, lost its hegemony during the 13th century and was replaced by Old French.
In the 15th century, the Dukes of Burgundy took over the Low Countries. The death of Charles the Bold in 1477 raised the issue of succession, and the Liégeois took advantage of this to regain some of their autonomy. From the 16th to the 18th century, the Low Countries were governed successively by the Habsburg dynasty of Spain (from the early 16th century until 1713–14) and later by Austria (until 1794). This territory was enlarged in 1521–22 when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor gained the Tournai region from France.
Present-day Belgium was conquered in 1795 by the French Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was annexed to the Republic, which later became the Napoleonic Empire. After the Battle of Waterloo, Wallonia became part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands under King William of Orange. The Walloons played an active part in the Belgian Revolution in 1830. The Provisional Government of Belgium proclaimed Belgium's independence and held elections for the National Congress.
The profitability of the heavy industries to which Wallonia owed its prosperity started declining in the first half of the 20th century, and the centre of industrial activity shifted north to Flanders. The loss of prosperity caused social unrest, and Wallonia sought greater autonomy in order to address its economic problems. In the wake of the 1960-1961 Winter General Strike, the process of state reform in Belgium got underway. This reform started partly with the linguistic laws of 1962–63, which defined the four language areas within the constitution. But the strikes of 1960 which took place in Wallonia more than in Flanders are not principally linked with the four language areas nor with the Communities but with the Regions. In 1968, the conflict between the communities burst out. French speakers in Flanders (who were not necessarily Walloons) were driven out of, most notably the Leuven-based Catholic University amid shouts of " Walen buiten!" ("Walloons out!"). After a formal split of the university in two and the creation of a brand new campus in Wallonia, a wider series of State reforms was passed in Belgium, which resulted in the federalisation of the nation and the creation of the Walloon Region and the French Community (comprising both Wallonia and Brussels), administrative entities each of which would gain various levels of considerable autonomy.
To the north of the Sambre and Meuse valley lies the Central Belgian plateau, which is characterized by intensive agriculture. The Walloon part of this plateau is traditionally divided into several regions: Walloon Brabant around Nivelles, Western Hainaut (, around Tournai), and Hesbaye around Waremme. South of the sillon industriel, the land is more rugged and is characterized by more extensive farming. It is traditionally divided into the regions of Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse, Condroz, Fagne-Famenne, the Ardennes and Land of Herve, as well as the Belgian Lorraine around Arlon and Virton. Dividing it into Condroz, Famenne, Calestienne, Ardennes (including Thiérache), and Belgian Lorraine (which includes the Gaume) is more reflective of the physical geography. The larger region, the Ardennes, is a thickly forested plateau with caves and small gorges. It is host to much of Belgium's wildlife but little agricultural capacity. This area extends westward into France and eastward to the Eifel in Germany via the High Fens plateau, on which the Signal de Botrange forms the highest point in Belgium at 694 metres (2,277 ft).
The province of Walloon Brabant is the most recent one, being formed in 1995 after the splitting of the province of Brabant.
The 10 largest groups of foreign residents in 2018 are:
| 98,682 |
| 81,148 |
| 16,815 |
| 16,275 |
| 16,040 |
| 14,181 |
| 11,340 |
| 9,112 |
| 7,534 |
| 6,699 |
The economically important very deep coal mining in the course of the First Industrial Revolution has required highly reputed specialized studies for mining engineers. But that was already the case before the Industrial Revolution, with an engineer as Rennequin Sualem for instance.
Engineer Zenobe Gramme invented the Gramme dynamo, the first generator to produce power on a commercial scale for industry. Chemist Ernest Solvay gave his name to the Solvay process for production of soda ash, an important chemical for many industrial uses. Ernest Solvay also acted as a major philanthropist and gave its name to the Solvay Institute of Sociology, the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and the International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry which are now part of the Université libre de Bruxelles. In 1911, he started a series of conferences, the Solvay Conferences on Physics and Chemistry, which have had a deep impact on the evolution of quantum physics and chemistry.
Georges Lemaître of the Université catholique de Louvain is credited with proposing the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe in 1927.
Three Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine were awarded to Walloons: Jules Bordet (Université libre de Bruxelles) in 1919, Albert Claude (ULB) together with Christian De Duve (UCLouvain) in 1974.
In the present day, Bureau Greisch has acquired an international reputation as consulting engineer and architect in the fields of structures, civil engineering and buildings, including the Millau Viaduct in France.
In the 19th century, the area began to industrialize, mainly along the so-called sillon industriel. It was the first fully industrialized area in continental Europe, and Wallonia was the second industrial power in the world, in proportion to its population and its territory, after the United Kingdom.Philippe Destatte, L'identité wallonne, Institut Destrée, Charleroi, 1997, pages 49–50 The sole industrial centre in Belgium outside the collieries and blast furnaces of Wallonia was the historic cloth making town of Ghent.
The two World Wars curbed the continuous expansion that Wallonia had enjoyed up till that time. Towards the end of the 1950s, things began to change dramatically. The factories of Wallonia were by then antiquated, the coal was running out and the cost of extracting coal was constantly rising. It was the end of an era, and Wallonia has been making efforts to redefine itself. The restoration of economical development is high on the political agenda, and the government is encouraging development of industries, notably in cutting-edge technology and in business parks. The economy is improving, but Wallonia is not yet at the level of Flanders and is still suffering from difficulties.
The current Walloon economy is relatively diversified, although certain areas (especially around Charleroi and Liège) are still suffering from the steel industry crisis, with an unemployment rate of up to 30 percent. Nonetheless, Wallonia has some companies which are world leaders in their specialized fields, including Weapon, glass production, Calcium oxide and limestone production, and aviation parts. The south of Wallonia, bordering Luxembourg, benefits from its neighbour's economic prosperity, with many Belgians working on the other side of the border; they are often called frontaliers. The Ardennes area south of the Meuse is a popular tourist destination for its nature and outdoor sports, in addition to its cultural heritage, with places such as Bastogne, Dinant, Durbuy, and the famous hot springs of Spa.
The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the region was 105.7 billion € in 2018, accounting for 23% of Belgian economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was €25,700 or 85% of the EU27 average in the same year.
Wallonia is also home to about 80 per cent of the population of the French Community of Belgium, a political level responsible for matters related mainly to culture and education, with the remainder living in Brussels. Wallonia is also home to the small German-speaking Community of Belgium in the east, which has its own government and parliament for culture-related issues. Although in Flanders, the Flemish Region assigned all of its powers to the Flemish Community, the Walloon Region remains in principle distinct from and independent from the French Community, and vice versa. Despite this, the French Community's parliament is almost entirely composed of members of Wallonia's and Brussels' parliaments, so the bodies are governed by the same individuals. Additionally, the French Community of Belgium has controversially begun referring to itself exclusively as the 'Wallonia-Brussels Federation' to emphasize the links between the French Community, Wallonia and Brussels.
The Walloon Region has a unicameral parliament with 75 members elected for five years by direct universal suffrage, and an executive, the Government of Wallonia, elected by a political majority in Parliament. The Government has nine members with the president. Each member is called a Walloon minister. The head of the Government is called the Minister-President of Wallonia. The coalition government for the 2014–2019 legislature was a centre-left coalition PS-cdH until July 28 when it was replaced by a centre-left coalition MR-cdH. The current Minister-President is Elio Di Rupo.
The rising of a Walloon identity led the Walloon Movement to choose different symbols representing Wallonia. The main symbol is the "bold rooster" (), also named "Walloon rooster" (, ), which is widely used, particularly on arms and flags. The rooster was chosen as an emblem by the Walloon Assembly on 20 April 1913, and designed by Pierre Paulus on 3 July 1913. The Flag of Wallonia features the red rooster on a yellow background.
An anthem, Le Chant des Wallons ( The Walloons' Song), written by Theophile Bovy in 1900 and composed by Louis Hillier in 1901, was also adopted. On September 21, 1913, the "national" feast day of Wallonia took place for the first time in Verviers, commemorating the participation of Walloons during the Belgian Revolution of 1830. It is held annually on the third Sunday of September. The Assembly also chose a motto for Wallonia, "Walloon Forever" (), and a cry, "Liberty" (). In 1998, the Walloon Parliament made all these symbols official except the motto and the cry.
There are noticeable Walloon accents, with the accent from Liège and its surroundings being perhaps the most striking. Other regions of Wallonia also have characteristic accents, often linked to the regional language.
The New York Public Library possesses a surprisingly large collection of literary works in Walloon, quite possibly the largest outside Belgium, and its holding are representative of the output. Out of nearly a thousand, twenty-six were published before 1880. Thereafter the numbers rise gradually year by year, reaching a peak of sixty-nine in 1903, and then they fall again, down to eleven in 1913. See 'Switching Languages', p. 153. Yves Quairiaux counted 4800 plays for 1860–1914, published or not. In this period plays were almost the only popular show in Wallonia. But this theater remains popular in the present-day Wallonia: Theater is still flourishing, with over 200 non-professional companies playing in the cities and villages of Wallonia for an audience of over 200,000 each year.
There are links between French literature and (the very small) Walloon literature. For instance Raymond Queneau set Editions Gallimard the publication of a Walloon Poets' anthology. Ubu roi was translated in Walloon by André Blavier, a Verviers pataphysician, for the new and important Puppets theater of Liège of Jacques Ancion, the Al Botroûle theater "at the umbilical cord" in Walloon indicating a desire to return to the source (according to Joan Cross). But Jacques Ancion wanted to develop a regular adult audience. From the 19th century, he included the Walloon play Tati l'Pèriquî by E.Remouchamps and the avant-garde Ubu roi by Alfred Jarry.Joan Gross, Speaking in Other Voices: An Ethnography of Walloon Puppet Theaters. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Press, 2001;
For Jean-Marie Klinkenberg, "the dialectal culture is no more a sign of attachment to the past but a way to participate to a new synthesis".Benoît Denis et Jean-Marie Klinkenberg, Littérature : entre insularité et activisme in Le Tournant des années 1970. Liège en effervescence, Les Impressions nouvelles, Bruxelles, 2010, pp. 237–253, p. 252. French : Ancion monte l'Ubu rwèen 1975 (...) la culture dialectalisante cesse d'être une marque de passéisme pour participer à une nouvelle synthèse...
In their 'Histoire illustrée des lettres française de Belgique', Charlier and Hanse (editors), La Renaissance du livre, Bruxelles, 1958, published 247 pages (on 655 ), about the "French" literature in the Walloon provinces (or Walloon principalities of the Middle-Age, sometimes also Flemish provinces and principalities), for a period from the 11th to the 18th century. Among the works or the authors, the Sequence of Saint Eulalia (9th century), La Vie de Saint Léger (10th century), Jean Froissart (14th century in the County of Hainaut), Jean d'Outremeuse, Jean Lebel, Jean Lemaire de Belges (16th century from Bavay), the Prince of Ligne (18th century, Beloeil). There is a Walloon Surrealism,An Paenhuysen Surrealism in the Provinces. Flemish and Walloon Identity in the Interwar period in Image&Narrative, n° 13, Leuven November, 2005 especially in Hainaut Province. Charles Plisnier (1896–1952), born in Mons, won the Prix Goncourt in 1936, for his novel Mariages and for Faux Passeports (short stories denouncing Stalinism, in the same spirit as Arthur Koestler). He was the first foreigner to receive this honour. The Walloon Georges Simenon is likely the most widely read French-speaking writer in the world, according to the Tribune de Genève. More than 500 million of his books have been sold, and they have been translated into 55 languages. There is a link between the Jean Louvet's work and the social issues in Wallonia.
Flemish art was not confined to the boundaries of modern Flanders and several leading artists came from or worked in areas in which langues d'oïl were spoken, from the region of modern Wallonia, e.g. Robert Campin, Rogier van der Weyden (Rogier de la Pasture) and Jacques Daret. Joachim Patinir Henri Blès are generally called Mosan art painters. Lambert Lombard (Liège, 1505 – 1566) was a Renaissance painter, architect and theorist for the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. Gérard de Lairesse, Bertholet Flemalle were also important painters in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège.
Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (Liège, 1858 – Antwerp, 1910) architect and furniture designer, credited (along with Paul Hankar, Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde) with creating the Art Nouveau style, coined as a style in Paris by Bing. Your Antique Furniture Guide, Art Nouveau in Belgium, Efi-costarica.com. Accessed 29 June 2023.
George Grard (1901—1984) was a Walloon sculptor, known above all for his representations of the female, in the manner of Pierre Renoir and Aristide Maillol, modelled in clay or plaster, and cast in bronze.
During the 19th and 20th centuries many original romanticism, expressionism and surrealism Walloon painters emerged, including Félicien Rops, Paul Delvaux, Pierre Paulus, Fernand Verhaegen, Antoine Wiertz, René Magritte ... The avant-garde CoBrA movement appeared in the 1950s.
The vocal music of the so-called Franco-Flemish School developed in the southern part of the Low Countries and was an important contribution to Renaissance culture. Robert Wangermée and Philippe Mercier wrote in their encyclopedic book about the Walloon music that Liège, Cambrai and Hainaut Province played a leading part in the so-called Franco-Flemish School.Robert Wangermée et Philippe Mercier, La musique en Wallonie et à Bruxelles, La Renaissance du livre, Bruxelles, 1980, Tome I, p. 10.
Among them were Orlande de Lassus, Gilles Binchois, Guillaume Dufay In the 19th and 20th centuries, there was an emergence of major violinists, such as Henri Vieuxtemps, Eugène Ysaÿe (author of the unique opera in Walloon language during the 20th century Piére li houyeû – Pierre the miner – based on a real incident which occurred in 1877 during a miners' strike in the Liège region), and Arthur Grumiaux, while Adolphe Sax (born in Dinant) invented the saxophone in 1846. The composer César Franck was born in Liège in 1822, Guillaume Lekeu in Verviers. More recently, André Souris (1899–1970) was associated with Surrealism. Zap Mama is a more international group.
Henri Pousseur is generally regarded as a member of the Darmstadt School in the 1950s. Pousseur's music employs serialism, mobile forms, and aleatory, often mediating between or among seemingly irreconcilable styles, such as those of Franz Schubert and Anton Webern ( Votre Faust), or Pousseur's own serial style and the protest song "We shall overcome" ( Couleurs croisées). He was strongly linked to the social strikes in Liège during the 1960s.The "Trois Visages de Liege", (...) full of provocative sound collages evokes.. not only moments in sonic civic history, but the sounds of its historical events as well: wildcat strikes and their ensuing violence in 1960, protests against new laws being enacted, etc. See Acousmatrix 4: Scambi/Trois Visages de Liege/Paraboles Mix He worked also with the French writer Michel Butor.
The Gilles of Binche and the giants' procession in Ath are also UNESCO Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Other specialties include Herve cheese, an apple butter called sirop de Liège, the Garden strawberry of Wépion. Also notable is the Dinant specialty Flamiche: These cheese tarts are not found in window displays as they are meant to be eaten straight from the oven. As one restaurateur stated in a book about Walloon gastronomy "it is the client who waits for the flamiche, as the flamiche does not wait for the client". There are also the Ardennes ham, the tarte al djote from Nivelles, a dessert pie made with beet leaves and cheese,The Simon and Schuster international pocket food guide, 1981. while tarte au riz is a rice-pudding filled pie from Verviers. The Walloons of the Door Peninsula in Wisconsin have a tradition of making what is called a Belgian Pie but which is a flat pie more like a pizza covered with prune purée and topped with a thin cheese layer. These were made by the dozens in outdoor stone ovens for the many kermisses, in a tradition that dates back to immigration in the 1850s.
A signature Walloon sausage is called Belgian Trippe among the Walloon community of Northeastern Wisconsin on the Door Peninsula. It is a blend of pork and cabbage made differently from household to household and probably based on a traditional Walloon sausage such as Boudin Verte d'Orp. Cussette is a fresh cheese which gets its airborne P. roqueforti culture from a tradition of making it in the kitchen. This is aged only one week at 30 degrees C, until it develops a faint blue cast and a tang. Walloon headcheese differs from the German in that it is more finely ground, includes bits of cartilage, and is allowed to sit for a month or two in a cool place before being eaten.
In terms of drink, Wallonia mirrors Belgium as a whole; beer and wine are both popular, and a great diversity of beers are made and enjoyed in Wallonia. Installed in Bierghes in the Senne valley, the Gueuzerie Tilquin is the only gueuze blendery in Wallonia. Wallonia boasts three of the seven (from Chimay, Orval Brewery and Rochefort) in addition to a great number of other locally brewed beers. Wallonia is also home to the last bastion of traditional rustic saison, most notably those produced at the Brasserie de Silly and the Brasserie Dupont (located in , in the region of Western Hainaut Province historically known for its production of rustic farmhouse ales). Jupiler, the best-selling beer in Belgium, is brewed in Jupille-sur-Meuse in Liège. Wallonia also home to a Jenever called Peket, and a May wine called Maitrank.
Wallonia has an extensive and well-developed rail network, served by the Belgian National Railway Company, SNCB.
Wallonia's numerous motorways fall within the scope of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). This priority programme run by the European Union provides more than 70,000 km of transport infrastructure, including motorways, express rail lines and roadways, and has been developed to carry substantial volumes of traffic.
On the west side of Wallonia, in Hainaut Province, the Strépy-Thieu boat lift, permits river traffic of up to the new 1350-tonne standard to pass between the waterways of the Meuse and Scheldt rivers. Completed in 2002 at an estimated cost of €160 million (then 6.4 billion ) the lift has increased river traffic from 256 kT in 2001 to 2,295 kT in 2006.
The AWEX organizes regular trade missions to the promising market of Kazakhstan, where it has a representative office in Almaty. In 2017, the AWEX together with the Flanders Investment and Trade brought a delegation of 30 companies to Astana and Almaty, the two largest cities in Kazakhstan.
|
|
