Belgium and the Netherlands maintain close bilateral relations, marked by shared history, culture, institutions and language, extensive people-to-people links, aligned security interests, sporting tournaments and vibrant trade and investment cooperation. Both nations are members of the European Union and NATO and, together with Luxembourg, form the Low Countries region and the Benelux economic union. The Dutch colonialism left a lasting institutional and legal footprint on modern Indonesia (Dutch East Indies), while the Belgian administration in Rwanda (part of German East Africa until 1916) and the DR Congo (Belgian Congo) left a legacy of ethnic tension, severe under-preparation for independence, and deep economic exploitation with resources, but neither saw a mass European settlement like South Africa.
History
Middle Ages During the Middle Ages, the territories that now comprise Belgium and the Netherlands were part of a patchwork of feudal states in the Low Countries. Despite political fragmentation (with counties and duchies such as Flanders, Brabant, Holland, and others), the region developed dense economic and cultural interconnections. By the 13th century the Low Countries had become one of the most prosperous areas in Europe, rivaling northern Italy in commerce and culture.
These economic networks fostered early ties between the populations of the two regions, long before they became nation-states. Cultural and artistic developments also flowed through the Low Countries – for example, the Duchy of Brabant and County of Flanders were centers of Gothic art and learning that influenced the Dutch-speaking communities further north. By the late Middle Ages, a sense of shared regional identity was growing: the Low Countries were increasingly referred to collectively, and the prosperity of the southern provinces radiated across the whole area, contributing to a degree of unity.
Burgundian Netherlands
In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Low Countries were gradually consolidated under the rule of the House of Burgundy – a development that significantly shaped relations between the regions that would become Belgium and the Netherlands. Beginning in 1384, the Dukes of Burgundy inherited or acquired many of the Netherlandish territories (including Flanders, Brabant, Holland, Zeeland, and others), bringing them under a single sovereign for the first time. Burgundy’s dominion created a de facto political union often called the Burgundian Netherlands. Duke Philip the Good (reigned 1419–1467) in particular pursued policies of centralization to bind the diverse provinces together. He established an increasingly modern central administration and, in 1464, convened the first Estates General representing all the provincial estates of the Netherlands. Burgundian rule also fostered a shared court culture and political outlook: the ducal court, moving between cities like Bruges, Brussels, and Lille, patronized Flemish and Dutch artisans alike and cultivated a sense of common identity among the nobility.
By the time the Burgundian line ended in 1477, the Low Countries had experienced a taste of integration, with political and economic ties between the provinces (roughly corresponding to modern Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg) stronger than ever before. The notion of the “Low Countries” as a collective entity was reinforced during this era, even as regional particularism persisted.
Seventeen Provinces
In 1482, the Burgundian inheritance in the Low Countries passed to the Habsburgs, and by 1543 Emperor Charles V had united these lands into a personal union known as the Seventeen Provinces. Under Habsburg rule, the Low Countries remained a single politico-administrative unit, and Charles V (a native of Ghent) continued the centralizing policies of his Burgundian predecessors. He established a capital at Brussels and in 1549 promulgated the Pragmatic Sanction, formally declaring the Seventeen Provinces indivisible for inheritance purposes. Despite this unification, significant internal tensions were growing by the mid-16th century. The northern and southern parts of the Seventeen Provinces differed in religion, economy, and political culture, and Habsburg efforts to impose uniform rule increasingly met resistance. The Protestant Reformation had begun to spread in the Low Countries, especially Calvinism in Flanders and Holland, which clashed with the staunch Catholicism of the Habsburg kings. Philip II of Spain (who inherited the provinces from Charles V in 1555) enforced strict Counter-Reformation measures and centralized governance, alienating large segments of the population.
Open unrest exploded in 1566 with the Iconoclastic Fury (Beeldenstorm) – waves of Calvinist mobs attacking Catholic churches and images across Flanders and Brabant. The following repression provoked armed resistance, and in 1568 the Low Countries erupted into open revolt against Spanish rule, beginning the Eighty Years’ War. During this protracted conflict, the once-united Seventeen Provinces split into hostile camps. In 1579 the southern, mostly Catholic provinces (e.g. Artois, Hainaut, and later Brabant and Flanders) formed the Union of Arras, making peace with Spain, while the northern provinces (led by Holland and Zeeland) formed the Union of Utrecht to continue fighting for independence. This effectively drew a line between what would become the Southern Netherlands and the Northern Netherlands (Dutch Republic). The leader of the revolt, William of Orange, and the rebel States-General formally abjured their loyalty to Philip II with the Act of Abjuration in 1581, effectively declaring sovereignty for the United Provinces in the north. The Habsburgs retained the southern provinces, which remained under Spanish sovereignty (often called the Spanish Netherlands). Thus, by the end of the 16th century, the “Seventeen Provinces” were split in two. This division – essentially the birth of an independent Netherlands while the south (broadly corresponding to today’s Belgium) stayed under Habsburg rule. The once-common institutions and close interactions under Burgundy and early Habsburg rule gave way to a political separation that would endure.
Dutch Republic
The Dutch Republic quickly became one of Europe’s leading powers in the 17th century, an era often referred to as the Dutch Golden Age. Now free from Spanish rule, the Protestant north embraced a decentralized, republican form of government dominated by the wealthy bourgeoisie of Holland and Zeeland. Its economy boomed: Amsterdam replaced Antwerp as the premier trade entrepôt of Northern Europe, and the Dutch built a global maritime empire. Crucially, the Dutch drew upon the commercial expertise and capital of many exiled southern Netherlanders (Protestant merchants, artisans, intellectuals) who had fled Spanish reconquest of the south. By mid-17th century, the Dutch Republic dominated carrying trade and finance in Europe, and its urban society flourished culturally (producing figures like Rembrandt and Spinoza).
In stark contrast, the Southern Netherlands (roughly present-day Belgium) underwent a period of relative economic and political decline under continued Habsburg rule. The once-prosperous cities of Flanders and Brabant never fully recovered their former dynamism after the closure of the Scheldt and the loss of so many skilled workers to the north. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia not only recognized Dutch independence but also stipulated that the Scheldt River remain closed to navigation, securing Dutch control of Antwerp’s access to the sea. The Southern Netherlands, predominantly Catholic and still governed by a Spanish-appointed nobility, became an “aristocratic state” with a more traditional, hierarchical society, compared to the Dutch republic. Commerce and innovation lagged behind the north: while the Dutch Republic pioneered capitalism and religious tolerance (attracting entrepreneurs and refugees), the south remained a garrisoned borderland in Europe’s great power struggles.
Bilateral relations between the Dutch Republic and the Southern Netherlands were limited and often defined by conflict or strategic concerns rather than cooperation. The two entities frequently found themselves on opposite sides of 17th-century wars. During the Anglo-Dutch Wars and the wars of Louis XIV of France, the Southern Netherlands (still under Habsburg Spain) was a major battleground – sometimes with tacit Dutch support, since the Protestant Dutch preferred a beleaguered Spanish-controlled Flanders as a buffer against French expansion. The Dutch Republic even undertook to garrison a series of fortresses in the Southern Netherlands after the War of the Spanish Succession: under the Barrier Treaties (1709–1715), the Dutch stationed troops in key border fortresses (like Namur, Tournai, and Ypres) to guard against French attacks.
In 1714, the Southern Netherlands passed from Spanish to Austrian Habsburg control, but this did little to change its subordinate status. The Austrian Netherlands remained largely cut off from the sea trade and was governed by a traditional elite; Emperor Joseph II’s attempted reforms in the 1780s (including an effort in 1784 to reopen the Scheldt) were met with resistance and even a short-lived rebellion in the Brabant Revolution. Meanwhile, the Dutch Republic faced its own challenges in the 18th century – periodic wars with Britain and France and internal political strife – but it maintained its independence until the French Revolutionary forces invaded in 1795. At the close of the 18th century, both north and south fell under French domination (the Dutch Republic was replaced by the Batavian Republic under French influence, and the Austrian Netherlands were annexed directly to revolutionary France in 1795). This tumultuous period set the stage for the next attempt at unification of the two regions under one state after the Napoleonic Wars.
United Kingdom of the Netherlands
After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, the great powers of Europe undertook a major redrawing of the map at the Congress of Vienna. One result was the decision to reunite the northern and southern Low Countries into a single kingdom. This was done by merging the former Austrian Netherlands (roughly today’s Belgium) with the former United Provinces (the Netherlands) to form the United Kingdom of the Netherlands under King William I of Orange. The great powers saw this as a strategic buffer state to contain France, restoring the Low Countries unity that had existed before 1585. On paper, the reunion made sense: it created a mid-sized kingdom with the economic potential of both the thriving Dutch trading economy and the industrializing regions of Wallonia. In practice, however, the union faced significant difficulties from the outset due to deep-rooted differences between north and south that had developed over centuries of separation. King William I, a Protestant Dutch monarch, attempted to centrally govern this composite state in an authoritarian, paternalistic manner – which quickly alienated many in the south. Southern Catholics resented the king’s control over the Catholic Church and southern liberals disliked the lack of representative government. Another problem was language: William I promoted the Dutch language in Flanders and even in the officially French-speaking administration of Brussels and Wallonia, aiming to make Dutch the unifying language of the kingdom. This policy angered the French-speaking Belgian elite, who saw it as an imposition; it also did little to appease Flemish speakers, since Dutch (as standardized in the Netherlands) was somewhat different from the local Flemish dialects and had long been suppressed in formal domains.