Editing Industrial Revolution (section)

====Belgium====
{{See also|History of Belgium#Industrial Revolution|History of Wallonia#Industry|Sillon industriel}}
[[File:La coulée à Ougrée.jpg|thumb|Painting of steel production in [[Ougrée]], Belgium, by [[Constantin Meunier]] (1885)]]
[[History of Belgium|Belgium]] was the second country in which the Industrial Revolution took place and the first in continental Europe: [[Wallonia]] (French-speaking southern Belgium) took the lead. Starting in the 1820s, and especially after Belgium became independent in 1830, factories comprising coke blast furnaces as well as puddling and rolling mills were built in the coal mining areas around [[Liège]] and [[Charleroi]]. The leader was [[John Cockerill (industrialist)|John Cockerill]], a transplanted Englishman. His factories at [[Seraing]] integrated all stages of production, from engineering to the supply of raw materials, as early as 1825.<ref name="publishing"/><ref>Milward and Saul, ''Economic Development of Continental Europe 1780–1870'' pp 292–296, 437–453.</ref>

Wallonia exemplified the radical evolution of industrial expansion, it was also the birthplace of a strong socialist party and trade unions. Thanks to coal,<ref name="language"/> the region became the second industrial power after Britain. With its ''[[Sillon industriel]]'', "Especially in the [[Haine]], [[Sambre]] and [[Meuse]] valleys...there was a huge industrial development based on coal-mining and iron-making...".<ref name="ugent"/> Philippe Raxhon wrote about the period after 1830: "It was not propaganda but a reality the Walloon regions were becoming the second industrial power...after Britain."<ref name="philippe"/> "The sole industrial centre outside the collieries and blast furnaces of Walloon was the old cloth-making town of [[Ghent]]."<ref name="erih"/><ref name="linguistiques"/> Many 19th-century coal mines in Wallonia are now protected as [[World Heritage Site]]s.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1344 |title= Major Mining Sites of Wallonia |website= UNESCO WOrld Heritage List |publisher= UNESCO |access-date= 18 March 2021 |archive-date= 3 July 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120703213428/http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1344 |url-status= live }}</ref> Even though Belgium was the second industrial country after Britain, the effect of the Industrial Revolution was very different. In 'Breaking stereotypes', Muriel Neven and Isabelle Devious say:
<blockquote>The Industrial Revolution changed a mainly rural society into an urban one, but with a strong contrast between northern and southern Belgium. During the Middle Ages and the early modern period, Flanders was characterised by the presence of large urban centres [...] at the beginning of the nineteenth century this region (Flanders), with an urbanisation degree of more than 30 percent, remained one of the most urbanised in the world. By comparison, this proportion reached only 17 percent in Wallonia, barely 10 percent in most West European countries, 16 percent in France, and 25 percent in Britain. 19th-century industrialisation did not affect the traditional urban infrastructure, except in Ghent... Also, in Wallonia, the traditional urban network was largely unaffected by the industrialisation process, even though the proportion of city-dwellers rose from 17 to 45 percent between 1831 and 1910. Especially in the [[Haine]], [[Sambre]] and [[Meuse]] valleys...where there was a huge industrial development based on coal-mining and iron-making, urbanisation was fast. During these eighty years, the number of municipalities with more than 5,000 inhabitants increased from only 21 to more than one hundred, concentrating nearly half of the Walloon population in this region. Nevertheless, industrialisation remained quite traditional in the sense that it did not lead to the growth of modern and large urban centres, but to a conurbation of industrial villages and towns developed around a coal mine or a factory. Communication routes between these small centres only became populated later and created a much less dense urban morphology than, for instance, the area around Liège where the old town was there to direct migratory flows.<ref name="stereotypes"/></blockquote>