Belgium of the European Union and the extraordinary and committee sessions of the European Parliament. Belgium shares borders with France (), Germany (), Luxembourg () and the Netherlands (). Its total surface, including water area, is 30,528 square kilometres from which land area alone 30,278 km. It lies between latitudes 49°30 and 51°30 N, and longitudes 2°33 and 6°24 E. Belgium has three main geographical regions; the coastal plain in the northwest and the central plateau both belong to the Anglo-Belgian Basin, and the Ardennes uplands in the southeast to the Hercynian orogenic belt. The Paris Basin reaches a small fourth
Developed country Terms linked to the concept "developed country" include "advanced country", "industrialized country", "'more developed country" (MDC), "more economically developed country" (MEDC), "Global North country", "first world country", and "post-industrial country". The term industrialized country may be somewhat ambiguous, as industrialization is an ongoing process that is hard to define. The first industrialized country was the United Kingdom, followed by Belgium. Later it spread further to Germany, United States, France and other Western European countries. According to some economists such as Jeffrey Sachs, however, the current divide between the developed and developing world is largely a phenomenon of the 20th century.