Partition of Belgium colloquially referred to as "Flemish"), and French is spoken by 40%. Total Dutch speakers number 6.23 million, concentrated in the northern Flanders region, while French speakers comprise 3.32 million in Wallonia and an estimated 870,000 (85%) of the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The German-speaking Community is made up of 73,000 people in the east of Wallonia; around 10,000 German and 60,000 Belgian nationals are speakers of German. Roughly 23,000 more German speakers live in municipalities near the official Community. The Capital Region having bilingual status obliges its authorities to attend to people and organisations in French or Dutch language as
German-speaking Community of Belgium were once again annexed by Belgium, and as a result of alleged collaboration with Nazi Germany an attempt was made to de-Germanize the local population by the Belgian and Walloon authorities. In the early 1960s, Belgium was divided into four linguistic areas, the Dutch-speaking Flemish area, the French-speaking area, the bilingual capital of Brussels, and the German-speaking area of the east cantons. In 1973, three communities and three regions were established and granted internal autonomy. The legislative Parliament of the German-speaking Community, ", was set up. Today the German-speaking Community has a fair degree of autonomy, especially in language and