Partition of Belgium emerged in Brussels, the capital and largest city of the country. Ethnic tensions have affected some of the city's surrounding municipalities, which are situated in Flanders, but have had a great influx of monolingual French-speakers as a result of suburbanisation. These Dutch-speaking "facility municipalities" are obliged to offer local government services in French, meaning health-care and public amenities are divided on linguistic lines, and in some municipalities the original French-speaking minority is believed to have become a majority. The main reason for Brussels being mainly French-speaking was the low social prestige of the Dutch language in Belgium during the 19th
Day of the German-speaking Community Day of the German-speaking Community The Day of the German-speaking Community is a holiday in Belgium celebrated on 15 November each year. It is a public holiday for the German-speaking Community of Belgium but it is not celebrated elsewhere in the country. The equivalents of the other communities are the Day of the Flemish Community (11 July) and the Day of the French-speaking Community (27 September). The ceremony coincides with the King's Feast. The German-speaking Community measures over 853 km (329 sq miles) in the Belgian region of Wallonia, and is made up of two territories consisting of nine municipalities.