Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium of Belgium. It has a surface area of , or 55.18% of Belgium, and is also divided into 5 provinces which contain a total of 262 municipalities. Its capital is Namur. The official languages are French and, only in the nine eastern municipalities that form the German-speaking Community near the German border, German. Dutch however, may be used for administrative purposes in the four "municipalities with language facilities" at the border with Flanders, and German in two such municipalities near the German-speaking Community. The Walloon Region contains five provinces: Hainaut, Walloon Brabant, Namur, Liège and Luxembourg. Communities, regions and language
Music of Belgium Music of Belgium The music of Belgium is a cultural crossroad where Flemish Dutch-speaking and Walloon French-speaking traditions mix with those of German minorities and of immigrant communities from Democratic Republic of the Congo and other distant countries. Many of the major 15th- and 16th-century composers of the Franco-Flemish School—a current of vocal polyphony that played a central role in European art music of the time—were born and bred in the portion of the Low Countries that is situated in present-day Belgium, often in Hainaut. The late medieval composer and music theorist Johannes Ciconia (c. 1370–1412) had been born in