A marsh settlement became Europe’s political village
The Brussels-Capital Region packs nineteen municipalities—including the City of Brussels, Belgium’s capital—into about 162 km² with over 1.2 million people. Since World War II it has hosted layers of international institutions that make the city a byword for European politics.
The name probably comes from Old Dutch words for a settlement in a marsh, and the first record of Brosella dates to 695, when it was a hamlet. Legend credits Saint Gaugericus with a chapel on an island in the Senne around 580; the usual founding date is about 979, when Duke Charles of Lower Lorraine brought Saint Gudula’s relics there and fortified the island. Sitting on the trade route from Bruges and Ghent to Cologne, the town grew rich on textiles, drained its marshes, and began its cathedral in 1225.
As capital of the Burgundian Netherlands it flourished, and Charles V was declared of age at its Coudenberg Palace in 1515 and abdicated there in 1555. Its lace and tapestries were prized across Europe. In 1695 Louis XIV’s artillery destroyed the Grand-Place and some 4,000 buildings, a third of the city, the worst disaster in its history.
Spanish, Austrian, French, and Dutch rule followed until 1830, when an audience leaving Auber’s La Muette de Portici at La Monnaie started the Belgian Revolution. Leopold I took the throne on 21 July 1831 and tore down the walls. A canal to Charleroi opened in 1832, the Free University in 1834, and in 1835 the first passenger railway outside England ran from Molenbeek to Mechelen.
Once Dutch-speaking, the city shifted to French from the late 1800s; the region has been officially bilingual since 1989. It hosts NATO’s headquarters and the main EU institutions, making it the Union’s de facto capital, and its long comics tradition has earned it the title of comic-strip capital.
Source: Brussels
