Brussels

The official founding of Brussels is usually dated to about 979, when Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine, brought the relics of Saint Gudula to a chapel on the river Senne. The town spread from the marshy valley up to the Coudenberg and the Sablon, where floods were less of a risk, and reached about 30,000 people in the Middle Ages. Its town hall was raised between 1401 and 1455. In 1695, during the Nine Years' War, Louis XIV's artillery bombarded the city and destroyed most of the Grand-Place; only the town hall's facade and tower and some walls survived, and the guildhalls were rebuilt in the years that followed.

The Belgian revolution of 1830 made Brussels the capital of a new kingdom, and Leopold I took the throne on 21 July 1831. The walls came down and in 1835 the first passenger railway outside England ran from Molenbeek to Mechelen. The population of the city and its surroundings grew from about 80,000 to more than 625,000 during the 19th century, and Victor Horta and other architects made it a centre of Art Nouveau. Three world's fairs followed, in 1910, 1935 and 1958, the last leaving the Atomium on the Heysel plateau.

After the Second World War Brussels became a centre of international politics. The North–South rail connection was finished in 1952 and the first metro line opened in 1976, while the demolitions known as Brusselisation cost the city buildings such as Horta's Maison du Peuple. The European institutions and NATO's headquarters settled here, and in 1989 Brussels became a region of its own. On 22 March 2016 coordinated bombings at the airport and at Maalbeek metro station killed 32 people.

Brussels calls itself a capital of the comic strip. Tintin, Spirou, Lucky Luke and the Smurfs are Belgian characters, the Belgian Comic Strip Center occupies a Horta building, and large murals of comic characters painted on walls across the centre make up the Comic Book Route. The surrealists René Magritte and Paul Delvaux studied and lived here, and the city's Art Nouveau and Art Deco buildings, from Horta's town houses to the Flagey building in Ixelles, are a source of local pride. La Monnaie, the royal opera house, leads a busy performing arts scene.

The city is deeply international. By 2024 citizens of 186 nationalities lived in the region and residents spoke 104 languages; in 2020 almost three-quarters of the population had a foreign background. French is the main language — spoken well by about 81 per cent of residents, against 22 per cent for Dutch and 47 per cent with advanced English — while the old Brusselian dialect survives among a small minority, above all in the Marolles. Manneken Pis, regularly dressed in one of around a thousand costumes, is held up as an example of self-derisive belgitude, or Belgianness, and of the folk humour known as zwanze.

Folklore holds its place. The Ommegang, a pageant of giants, riders and medieval costume re-enacting the entry of Charles V in 1549, ends on the Grand-Place each summer and has been recognised by UNESCO since 2019, and the Zinneke Parade brings neighbourhood groups together every two years. Football loyalties are divided between Anderlecht, Union Saint-Gilloise and RWDM of Molenbeek.

About 1.26 million people live in the Brussels-Capital Region, according to 2025 figures, and its metropolitan area holds over 2.5 million. The City of Brussels itself, the largest of the 19 municipalities and the historic core, had about 197,000 residents at the start of 2024. The population is younger than the national average, and the gap between rich and poor is wider: the region has the highest GDP per head in Belgium but the lowest disposable household income.

The economy is dominated by the European institutions, regional and world headquarters of multinationals, government at every level and the services around them; in 2013 the EU presence alone was linked to about 121,000 jobs. In 2023 the City of Brussels moved its mayor and administration out of the medieval town hall into a new building, Brucity, leaving the old one for ceremonies and visitors.

Neighbourhoods differ sharply. Ixelles, Etterbeek and Saint-Gilles have the highest share of foreign residents, with Congolese Matongé in Ixelles; Saint-Gilles runs from run-down blocks by the Midi station to grand houses on its southern edge; and the Marolles keep a working-class identity under the Palace of Justice. Life goes on in two official languages, with schools, culture and many services run separately by the French and Flemish communities.

Brussels is known for its waffles, its chocolate, its frites and its many beers. The Brussels waffle, lighter and airier than the Liège waffle sold in many tourist shops, comes rectangular and dusted with powdered sugar or piled with fruit and whipped cream, and hot waffles are sold on the street in the tourist areas. Frites come from friteries or fritkots spread across the city, and which serves the best is a matter of heated local debate. Moules-frites, mussels served with fries, is the classic restaurant dish, and chocolate and praline makers such as Côte d'Or, Neuhaus, Leonidas and Godiva are part of the city's identity.

More local dishes include stoemp, potatoes mashed with vegetables; anguilles au vert, river eels in green sauce; meatballs in tomato sauce; and turbot waterzooi, fish in a sauce of cream and egg. The cooking combines French cuisine with heartier Flemish fare, served in brasseries with long beer lists, while cafés offer beer and light dishes and coffee and cakes belong to the salon de thé. Almost every national cuisine in the world can be found somewhere in the city.

Beer has its own local style. Lambic is fermented spontaneously by wild yeasts from the Senne valley, and kriek, a cherry lambic, is served in almost every bar. The Cantillon brewery in Anderlecht, founded in 1900, still brews nothing but lambic, and the Delirium Café near the Grand-Place stocks beers from over 60 countries.