Belgium Belgium Belgium officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Western Europe bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of and has a population of more than 11.4 million. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi and Liège. The sovereign state of Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. Its institutional organisation is complex and is structured on both regional and linguistic grounds. It
Second city of the United Kingdom over the years. Despite Birmingham being viewed as the traditional second city, public polls have shown a consistent preference for Manchester since 2000. This shift has been attributed to Manchester's and the wider Greater Manchester region's rebranding of itself, most notably after the 1996 Manchester bombing and the successful hosting of the 2002 Commonwealth Games: There have been a variety of Ministerial statements and opinions on the subject for some time. These include: Second city of the United Kingdom The second city of the United Kingdom is an unofficial claim made at various times by several cities since the establishment