Luxembourg (Belgium)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Luxembourg is the southernmost province of Wallonia and of Belgium. It borders on (clockwise from the east) the country of Luxembourg, France, and the Belgian provinces of Namur and Liège. Its capital is Arlon (Template:Lang-lb, Template:Lang-nl), in the south-east of the province.
It has an area of Template:Cvt, making it the largest Belgian province. At around 250,000 residents, it is also the least populated province, making it a relatively sparsely populated province in an otherwise very densely populated country.
It is significantly larger (70%) and much less populous than the neighbouring Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. About eighty percent of the province is part of the densely wooded Ardennes region. The southernmost region of the province is called Gaume or Belgian Lorraine (main city: Virton).
The Arelerland or Arlon region (in red on the following map of the province) alongside the border with the neighbouring Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg has the particularity that many residents speak Luxembourgish instead of the Walloon variety spoken elsewhere in the province.
The province was separated from the neighbouring Luxembourg by the Third Partition of Luxembourg, de jure in 1830–31 by the Conference of London dealing with the consequences of the Belgian Revolution of 1830, de facto in 1839, after William I, King of the Netherlands and Grand-Duke of Luxembourg, agreed to its decisions and thus the province was given to the newly created Kingdom of Belgium.
