Walloon Flanders (Dutch: ''Waals Vlaanderen'', French: ''Flandre wallonne'') was a semi-independent part of the

County of Flanders The County of Flanders was a historic territory in the Low Countries. From 862 onwards, the counts of Flanders were among the original twelve peers of the Kingdom of France. For centuries, their estates around the cities of Ghent, Bruges a ...

, composed of the burgraviates of

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the No ...

Douai Douai (, , ,; pcd, Doï; nl, Dowaai; formerly spelled Douay or Doway in English) is a city in the Nord département in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. Located on the river Scarpe some from Lille and from Arras, Dou ...

and Orchies. It is sometimes referred to as ''Lille–Douai–Orchies.'' The population of the region speak Walloon and Picardy dialects.

History

The term "Walloon Flanders" appeared after the French conquest and was fixed in the literature by the beginning of the 19th century. Walloon Flanders was part of the

from the early Middle Ages, but was ceded to the

Kingdom of France The Kingdom of France ( fro, Reaume de France; frm, Royaulme de France; french: link=yes, Royaume de France) is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period. ...

from 1304 to 1369, by the

Treaty of Athis-sur-Orge The Treaty of Athis-sur-Orge was a peace treaty signed on 23 June 1305 between King Philip IV of France and Robert III of Flanders. The treaty was signed at Athis-sur-Orge after the Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle and concluded the Franco-Flemish W ...

which concluded the Franco-Flemish War (1297-1305). As a result, it was to some degree institutionally distinct from the County of Flanders and in some lists it even features as one of the

Seventeen Provinces The Seventeen Provinces were the Imperial states of the Habsburg Netherlands in the 16th century. They roughly covered the Low Countries, i.e., what is now the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and most of the French departments of Nord (F ...

. Furthermore, Walloon Flanders adhered to the Union of Arras in 1579, whereas the County of Flanders joined the Union of Utrecht. In 1678, Walloon Flanders was annexed to France after the Treaties of Nijmegen. Together with Maritime Flanders (Westhoek), it forms

French Flanders French Flanders (french: La Flandre française) is a part of the historical County of Flanders in present-day France where a dialect of Dutch was or still is traditionally spoken. The region lies in the modern-day region of Hauts-de-France an ...

, and is today the part of the Departement du Nord roughly corresponding with the

Arrondissement of Lille The arrondissement of Lille is an arrondissement of France in the Nord department in the Hauts-de-France region. It has 124 communes. Its population is 1,237,472 (2016), and its area is . Composition The communes of the arrondissement of Lille, a ...

and the

Arrondissement of Douai The arrondissement of Douai ( vls, Dowaai) is an arrondissement of France in the Nord department in the Hauts-de-France region. It has 64 communes. Its population is 245,280 (2016), and its area is . Composition The communes of the arrondissemen ...

References

{{Authority control County of Flanders Wallonia

History

See also

References