Side by side
Belgium and France compared
Two sourced records set beside each other — the figures each nation publishes, and the events each chronicle records of the other. Compared, never graded.
4 October 1830 — Belgium declares independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands
10 August 843 — The Treaty of Verdun gives Charles the Bald West Francia
- Shared indicators
- 42
- Domains
- 9
- Crossed events
- 6
- Data through
- 2026-08-10
The figures, side by side
Each figure is the same observation, with the same source, as on the two dossiers. Every value shows the year it was observed — vintages differ by indicator and nation. A “—” is an absence in the source data, never a zero. Metric names link to the world ranking; values open the figure on its own dossier.
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Entangled histories
6 events in which either nation’s sourced chronicle names the other — including under earlier names of the same state. Each is the same record, with the same sources, as on its own chronicle; nothing here was written for this page.
- 11 Jul 1302
Battle of the Golden Spurs
A Flemish town militia, mostly craft guildsmen, destroyed a French army of knights near Courtrai, collecting the golden spurs of the slain nobles and asserting the independence of the Flemish towns.
War & Rupture · from the Belgium chronicle · The Medieval Low Countries: Flanders, Brabant and the Cloth Towns · Battle of the Golden Spurs, Belgium: History
- 1795
French annexation of the southern Netherlands
Revolutionary France annexed the Austrian Netherlands and the prince-bishopric of Liège, ending Habsburg rule and governing the region directly from Paris for twenty years.
War & Rupture · from the Belgium chronicle · Revolution, Independence and the Guaranteed Neutral Kingdom · Belgium: History
- 1815
Union with the Netherlands
After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo on Belgian soil, the Congress of Vienna merged the southern provinces with the Dutch into the United Kingdom of the Netherlands under William I, as a buffer against France.
Politics & Power · from the Belgium chronicle · Revolution, Independence and the Guaranteed Neutral Kingdom · Belgium: History, The Treaty of London, 1839 (primary text)
- 19 Apr 1839
Treaty of London guarantees Belgian neutrality
Austria, Britain, France, Prussia, Russia and the Netherlands recognised Belgium as an independent and perpetually neutral state and guaranteed its neutrality, the treaty later cited by Britain to enter the First World War.
Independence · from the Belgium chronicle · Revolution, Independence and the Guaranteed Neutral Kingdom · The Treaty of London, 1839 (primary text), Belgium: History
- 10 May 1940
Second German invasion
Germany again invaded neutral Belgium on 10 May 1940, this time thrusting through the Ardennes, and rapidly overwhelmed the defending Belgian, French and British forces.
War & Rupture · from the Belgium chronicle · The Two World Wars and the Gains of Versailles · German Invasion of Western Europe, May 1940, Belgium: History
- 1962–1963
The linguistic frontier fixed
Language laws drew a fixed border between Dutch-, French- and German-speaking areas and created four language regions, entrenching the divide between Belgium's communities.
Politics & Power · from the Belgium chronicle · A Federal Kingdom at the Heart of Europe · Belgium: History