Editing Flanders (section)

== Terminology ==
=== Modern Belgium ===
The term "Flanders" has several main modern meanings:

* The "Flemish community" or "Flemish nation", i.e. the social, cultural and linguistic, scientific and educational, economical and political community of the [[Flemings]]. For most purposes this is considered to include the 6.5 million Belgians (approximately 60%) who consider Dutch to be their mother tongue, including many people living in the [[Brussels-Capital Region]].
* In the context of the political subdivisions of Belgium there are the [[Flemish Region]] (competent in mainly economic matters) and the [[Flemish Community]] (competent in mainly cultural matters). The first does not comprise Brussels (which forms a [[Brussels-Capital Region|Region by itself]]), whereas the latter does comprise the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Brussels.
* The political institutions that govern both subdivisions: the operative body or "[[Flemish Government]]", and the legislative organ or "[[Flemish Parliament]]".
* Within Belgian discussions, the two westernmost provinces of the Flemish Region, [[West Flanders]] and [[East Flanders]], forming the central portion of the historic [[County of Flanders]] are also still collectively referred to as Flanders.

=== Historical ===
{{Main|Terminology of the Low Countries#Flanders}}

The name originally applied to the ''[[ancien régime]]'' territory called the [[County of Flanders]], that existed from the 8th century (Latin ''Flandria'') until its absorption by the [[French First Republic]]. Until the 1600s, this county also extended over parts of what are now France and the Netherlands.

* In France, one of the historically Flemish regions is now in the [[Nord (French department)|Nord department]]. This is referred to as [[French Flanders]], and can be divided into two smaller regions: [[Walloon Flanders]] and [[Westhoek (region)|Maritime Flanders (Westhoek)]]. The first region was predominantly French-speaking already in the 1600s, the latter became so in the 20th century. The [[Lille|city of Lille]] identifies itself as "Flemish", and this is reflected, for instance, in the name of its local railway station [[TGV]] ''[[Gare de Lille Flandres|Lille Flandres]]''.
* The historically Flemish region which became part of the [[Dutch Republic]], now part of the Dutch province of [[Zeeland]], called [[Zeelandic Flanders]].

However, the term came to be used for a bigger territory, and this is critical to the evolution of modern terminology. Once the Counts of Flanders (who were also Dukes of Burgundy) expanded their regional power to create the bigger entity, now referred to by historians as the [[Burgundian Netherlands]], "Flanders", along with Latin "Belgium", were the first two common names to describe this regional block.<ref>{{Citation|last=Van Der Essen |first=Leon |title= Notre nom national |journal=Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire|volume= 4 |issue= 1| year= 1925| pages= 121–131| doi=10.3406/rbph.1925.6335| url=http://www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_1925_num_4_1_6335}}</ref> With the breakaway of the northern Netherlands in the [[early modern period]], the term Flanders continued to be associated with the whole southern part of the [[Low Countries]]—the [[Southern Netherlands|Southern]], [[Spanish Netherlands|Spanish]] or [[Austrian Netherlands]], which were the successors of the Burgundian state, and also predecessors of modern Belgium. The restriction of the term Flanders to the Germanic speaking part of the population occurred later.

=== Dutch-speaking part of Belgium ===
The term "Flemish" came to be a term for the language Dutch, and during the 19th and 20th centuries, it became increasingly common to refer exclusively to the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium as "Flanders". Belgium divided itself into official French- and Dutch-speaking parts starting in the early 1960s. Today Flanders extends over the northern part of Belgium, including not only the Dutch-speaking Belgian parts of the medieval [[Duchy of Brabant]], which was united with Flanders since the Middle Ages, but also [[Limburg (Belgium)|Belgian Limburg]], which corresponds closely to the medieval [[County of Loon]], and was never under Burgundian control.

The ambiguity between this wider cultural area and that of the county or province still remains in discussions about the region. In most present-day contexts however, the term Flanders is taken to refer to either the political, social, cultural, and linguistic community (and the corresponding official institution, the [[Flemish Community]]), or the geographical area, one of the three institutional regions in Belgium, namely the [[Flemish Region]].

In the [[history of art]] and other fields, the adjectives Flemish and [[Netherlandish]] are commonly used to designate all the artistic production in this area before about 1580, after which it refers specifically to the southern Netherlands. For example, the term "Flemish Primitives", now outdated in English but used in French, Dutch and other languages, is a synonym for "[[Early Netherlandish painting]]", and it is not uncommon to see [[Mosan art]] categorized as Flemish art. In music the ''[[Franco-Flemish School]]'' is also known as the ''Dutch School''.

Within this Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, French has never ceased to be spoken by some citizens, and Jewish groups have been speaking [[Yiddish]] in Antwerp for centuries. Regardless of nationality or linguistic background, according to Belgian Law education in schools located in the Flemish Region must be mainly in the Dutch language. In Brussels, teaching is also done in French.