Flemish Region - Flemish Provinces, West Flanders, Flemish Brabant, Antwerp, Limburg, East Flanders (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Antwerp (Dutch: )) is the northernmost province both of the Flemish Region, also called Flanders, and of Belgium. It borders on (clockwise from the North) the Netherlands and the Belgian provinces of Limburg, Flemish Brabant and East Flanders. Its capital is Antwerp which comprises the Port of Antwerp. It has an area of 2867 km and with nearly 1.7 million inhabitants it is the country's most populous province. The province consists of 3 Arrondissements, Antwerp, Mechelen and Turnhout. The eastern part of the province comprises the main part of the Campine region. During the early Middle Ages the region was part of the Frankish Empire, which was divided into several pagi. The territory of the present day province belonged to several pagi of which the region around Antwerp belonged to the Pagus Renesium. The Pagus Toxandria stretched from North Brabant into the Campine region. To the south there was the Pagus Bracbatinse and the Pagus Hasbaniensis. In 843 the Carolingian Empire of Charlemagne was divided among his sons and the river Scheldt became the border between West Francia and East Francia. In 974 Otto II established the Mark County of Antwerp as a defence against the County of Flanders. In 1106, Henry V granted the Mark County to Godfrey I of Leuven. His descendants would from 1235 onwards become the Duches of Brabant and the region itself was the northern part of the Duchy of Brabant. In 1430 the Duchy became part of the County of Burgundy until 1477 when it fell to the House of Habsburg. In 1713, at the end of the Spanish Succession War the region became part of the Austrian Netherlands until 1794, with in 1790 the short lived United States of Belgium. On 1 October 1795 the former Austrian Netherlands were annexed by France under the ... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=58186