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
Languages of Belgium all of the inhabitants of the Capital region speak French as either their primary language (50%) or as a lingua franca (45%). There are also many Flemish people who speak French as a second language. Belgian French is in most respects identical to standard, Parisian French, but differs in some points of vocabulary, pronunciation, and semantics. German is the least prevalent official language in Belgium, spoken natively by less than 1% of the population. The German-speaking Community of Belgium numbers 77,000, residing in an area of Belgium that was ceded by the former German Empire as part of the Treaty