Belgium in "the long nineteenth century" the small duchies, princedoms and counties which had traditionally been the basic territorial units. Aside from Zeelandic Flanders, part of Luxembourg, and Northern Limburg, which were ceded to the Dutch to compensate for the loss of the rest of the territory, the outline of Belgium in 1914 was virtually identical to that established by the French in 1795. The three ceded territories had a total of 300,000 inhabitants at the time. The northern half of Belgium, which would come to be known as Flanders, was a largely agricultural area containing the important port of Antwerp, the city of Ghent and
German-speaking Community of Belgium officially considered part of the German-speaking Community of Belgium: Bleiberg-Welkenraedt-Baelen in northeastern province of Liège and Arelerland (city of Arlon and some of its nearby villages in southeastern province of Belgian Luxembourg). However, in these localities, the German language is declining due to the expansion of French. The area known today as the East Cantons consists of the German-speaking Community and the municipalities of Malmedy and Waimes (), which belong to the French Community of Belgium. The East Cantons were part of the Rhine Province of Prussia in Germany until 1920 (as the counties (') of Eupen and Malmedy), but