hey guys welcome back to 400 reacts today we're going to be doing a very interesting video
we're going to be doing uh geography now belgium and uh the reason why we're doing this is that uh
someone who recently subscribed to my patreon requested for me to check out this video so
i'm gonna be doing that obviously um so i do have a patreon i recently um you know started
to speak about it more on videos due to the fact that um somebody surprisingly subscribed to it
and i decided okay i'm gonna start speaking about it so other people could possibly go there if they
want to support the channel so you guys can go subscribe to the patreon you guys can get behind
the scenes you guys can see videos before they're actually on youtube listen i do a bunch of videos
and um i literally have them hidden on youtube and uh they're just stacked up so i can release
probably 10 videos tomorrow if i wanted to but i don't do that i release two videos a day so
that's what we do here at foreign reactos everything has to be foreign to the reactor so
like i said the link for the patreon will be in the description you can go check it out if
you want and we're going to be doing geography now right now for belgium because it was requested by
supporter from patreon so without further ado guys let's get right into this video
let me tell you a little story once upon a time france had a son named walunia and the netherlands
had a son named flanders one day a bunch of crazy stuff happened in europe yadda yadda after all the
crazy stuff subsided flanders was like hey walunia yeah uh i'm gonna move out of my parents place and
i got this new rad apartment but i kind of need another guy to help me pay for the rent i don't
know you're kind of a cool guy i guess would you like to be my roommate uh yeah sure i guess
why not um but just for the record i don't speak any dutch oh no worries i don't speak any french
this is weird weird standoff and that's how belgium became a country kind of it's time to
learn geography no hey everybody i'm your host paul barbato you've all probably at
least heard of the name belgium and if you have congrats that's not enough let's dissect the flag
yeah why does it look like the german flag it's like the flag of germany knocked over
to the left side but just keep in mind the color sequence is black yellow red not black red yellow
also the flag has an unusual proportion of 13 to 15 making it almost a square
the flag's colors are directly correlated to the country's code of arms the black
representing the shield and determination the yellow representing the lion and generosity
and the red representing the lion's claws and tongue and the crown as well as bravery
and strength speaking of strength you're gonna need a lot of it to understand this next part
if you're gonna learn anything about belgium the one thing you have to understand
is how the country is split up this is very important so pay attention brandon
what azerbaijan yeah dude that was like eight episodes ago first of all belgium is located
in europe right under the netherlands and north east of france right at the foot of
the north sea next to the english channel in the most fundamental way i can put this
belgium is divided into three regions the dutch or the flemish speaking north region called
flanders the south or french walloon region called walunia and the capital brussels acts
in itself as a third region and functions in a completely bilingual way most of the
people in brussels speak both dutch and french however french is a little bit more prevalent
got it okay good yeah i got it i got it i've heard of brussels before i i never knew it was wow wow
interesting the flanders and wallunia regions are then divided into five provinces each making
a total of ten provinces brussels doesn't count and is considered its own region not belonging
to either flanders or wallunia even though technically it's completely engulfed in flanders
but then again the region around brussels has a french administrative area around the city called
the bhv or the coastal alvin county in which large numbers of french minorities live and can
be judged in french even though it's in flanders still with me good because it gets even crazier
the french also have administrative centers in the south east and the southwest regions of flanders
and a walloonian municipal exclave in the west flanders province called komine walknetan even
though most of the people there speak dutch furthermore the flemish have one municipal
exclave in the liege province in walunia called vulgen oh we're just getting started though then
you have the german-speaking minority in the east of walunia in the liege province whom are making
propositions to create an eleventh province called upton song v speaking of germans belgium has a lot
and i repeat a lot of weird territorial claims and boundaries for one there are technically five
german exclaves hidden right along the border of the liege province in east belgium however
these exclaves are only separated from mainland germany from a belgian train track the ven bon
which is no longer in use this means that you can be in germany and only have 10 meters between you
and belgium between you go back into germany the smallest of these german exclaves is just a small
house near the german town of coulson with a front yard less than two hectares in area oh but wait
there's more then you reach the ever so confusing town of barrow nasa and barrow hertog in which
there are 22 belgian enclaves in the netherlands and eight dutch enclaves in belgium seven of which
are counter-enclaves or a part of the netherlands in belgium in the netherlands these borders
at first make no sense apparently they cross awkwardly through streets buildings restaurants
stores and even houses a person can literally wake up in one country and shower in there
okay let's get back that was move that was a mouthful the rule is whatever side your front door
is on is the country that you pay your taxes to the reason why it's so confusing is because long
story short there was a guy ruling the area called henry the first duke of brabant who gave parcels
of land to godfrey the second of schulten who ruled the area to the east in an attempt to build
an alliance so that his enemy dirk vii wouldn't expand his influence long story short henry's
land became belgium and godfrey's land became the netherlands to this day the two countries have
stayed true to gottfried and henry's agreement and has split the land exactly how they did
i like that i love that but wait we're not done just yet finally you have the confusing lis
riviere kanalari river in the border between the walloon province of enut and france starting in
the town of halo on france this river zigzags for about 26 kilometers with multiple river eyelets
and land pieces that act as penny enclaves until it all stops in the town of almentier
each side has an equal seven enclaves each along the river okay now let's talk about the landscape
it's mostly flat outside the cities there's farms and forests it's pretty lush and green however the
worldwide fund for nature ranked belgium pretty low in terms of their environmental performance
and the water quality was the lowest in the eu mostly due to the high population density
belgium isn't really agriculturally driven i mean economically most of their revenue comes from
machinery pharmaceuticals diamonds many of which were imported from the congo we'll explain about
that in a little bit and service and industry jobs as well okay that's about it moving on
now this is where things get really strange in the shortest way i can put this belgium is kind
of like an artificial country with technically no distinct former identity in which two regions kind
of became roommates and the respective communities have a government with the same power as a central
government huh and you thought andorra was confusing with that whole co-principality thing
brother please i'm belgium sit down i'm gonna give you a lesson in complication magnetics
first of all belgium has a little less than 11 million people at about 57 percent the slight
majority of people are flemish from flanders about 42 percent are walloon from walunia
and 1 german from the german community keep in mind although it's debatable the terms flemish
and walloon are more in reference to linguistic communities and not ethnicities by definitions
we have a congolese guy in liege identifying as a walloon and a moroccan guy in antwerp identifying
as a fleming as long as they speak the languages and become citizens that's pretty much it in terms
of race though about 77 of the people identify as ethnically belgian and the remaining 23 identify
as non-belgian origin some of the largest groups being moroccans italians turks and even congolese
from the democratic republic of congo as it was a former belgian colony along with rwanda and
burundi which is where a lot of the diamonds we talked about earlier come from the belgians even
took over a small part of china for a couple decades in the 20th century in tianjin after
quickly giving it back and to this day pictures from the belgian chinese colony are some of the
rarest photos you can find in historical archives as we mentioned belgium has three distinct regions
flanders walloon and brussels however regions weren't enough and so belgium decided to split
things up even more into communities due to the german-speaking minority predominantly in the
southeast belgium created a semi-mediary third community even though only one percent of the
country actually speaks german less than the amount of people in belgium who actually speak
arabic and has instituted three separate governments and parliaments one for each
language group the dutch french and german each of these governments actually has just
as much power as the central government wait what on top of that the french and
dutch communities are allowed to provide cultural and social services to the citizens in brussels
but not in the other region this means that a family living in brussels could possibly
depend upon the central government for taxes the french government for community centers the dutch
government for schools and the brussels government for the police force four governments acting at
once and then you have a king long story short belgium became a constitutional monarchy that
started in 1830 with philippe the first as the current head of state they are the only monarchy
in europe with no actual crown or lavish robes and scepters they gained independence from okay
french-speaking wal-media joined along and then they chose a german prince to become their first
king in terms of culture belgium can be attributed to a lot of things for one some of the world's
most renowned surrealist artists came from belgium like rene magritte cartoons like the smurfs and my
homeboy tintin i have read almost every single one of those comics ain't nobody mess with
tintin that dude is mad boss the national dish is mussels with french fries and mayonnaise belgians
will tell you that fries originated from belgium and of course waffles they make some of the best
chocolate in the world that rivals switzerland and of course everyone's favorite belgian jean-claude
van damme they host the headquarters of the eu and are typically called upon to
help europe administer their diplomatic affairs affairs with other countries we'll discuss in
front oh belgium belgium belgium when will you learn first of all belgium is a very neutral
country after gaining independence from the netherlands belgium quickly rose to become one
of the leading powers of the industrialized europe world and it was a founding member of both the eu
and nato this means that since day one belgium has had a huge entourage of affiliates that
they've kind of kept close however some are still closer than others the uk has always been a good
buddy of belgium since they played a pivotal role in the independence of belgium the us
is also a good friend and to this day they still commemorate the battle of the bulge in which the
u.s played a huge role in during the liberation of belgium in world war ii the only country that
might have a little bit of a distaste towards belgium might be the democratic republic of congo
as they were occupied and became a colony for a little less than a century belgium kind of did
a lot of things to the congo although tensions are generally eased off a bit today and numerous
congolese people immigrate to belgium yearly there's still a somewhat aversion that lingers
on in the back of each congolese mind when history is brought up of course as you would guess france
is a close friend too whom not only played a role in belgium's independence but also culturally
resonates with the south walu region as well the netherlands is a close friend as they
jive well with the flanders region despite the fact that they have a somewhat friendly
rivalry with each other over the years many referendums have actually passed in belgium
in which they almost considered re-annexing themselves back to their think about that think
about that france netherlands they got similar flags belgium germany they got similar flags
but belgium actually has both france and um netherlands and they have german
that got complicated real quick respective neighboring countries the netherlands and
france however they just can't seem to do it even though the sense of nationalism is kind of weak
except during soccer games in which they go all out belgian pride they still can't seem to let
go of each other for some weird reason in terms of their best friend though they would probably
consider luxembourg luxembourg is kind of seen as like the little brother of belgium and has been
theirs with belgium since the very beginning they were even for a short while part of belgium after
independence and their own monarchs philip the first and grand duke henry are actually cousins
too in conclusion belgium is disputedly the most confusing politically engineered country in all of
europe and by all means it makes no sense how they've kept it together for almost 200 years
but they actually did somehow belgium we dip our fries and mayonnaise to you stay tuned belize
is coming up next that was a beautiful view man it's been a minute since i've done a video for uh
geography now um i actually really enjoy his videos because they actually teach a lot a
lot about the country in depth um so i really do enjoy them right so i've not been doing any
of his videos due to the fact that i've literally been doing you know a lot of reaction reviews
about other things related to the countries that i've done geography now for like finland germany
and uh the netherlands and italy right so i've been doing a lot of videos for those countries
so i have not been really you know focused on this but like i said you know it was recommended
so i got to do it man you know they put their money on this so i gotta definitely you know
do my part so thank you guys for uh the love and support and uh you know if you like i said before
my patreon is gonna be in the description my instagram email if you guys want to reach out
to me it's all down there in the description so go check them out and uh i hope you guys enjoyed
this video and it was really complicated but it was really informative i'm out of here guys peace