User:Vb/Wallonia

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Wallonia (Wallonie, Wallonien, Wallonië, Waloneye) is the French-speaking southern part of Belgium. This region makes up about 31% of the Belgian population.

Since 1970, Wallonia has approximately coincided with the territory of the Walloon Region, which is a federated component of the Belgian state and provides a government and a parliament to both Wallonia and the smaller German-speaking Community of Belgium (73,000 inhabitants). Wallonia is therefore also the name colloquially given to the Walloon Region. The inhabitants of  Wallonia are belonging to the  French Community of Belgium also referred to as Wallonia-Brussels Community which includes both Wallonia and the  French-speaking inhabitants of Brussels-Capital Region (a little less than one million inhabitants).

Wallonia takes its name from the Walloons (from the Germanic word Walha, the strangers), the population of the medieval Low Countries speaking Romance languages.

The Sambre-Meuse valley


The Sambre-Meuse valley is the dividing line between Middle and High Belgium. It is the most populated region of Wallonia: about 2 million inhabitants (out of 3,4 million) and 1000 km2 (out of 16.000 km2). It includes the main cities: Mons, La Louvière, Charleroi, Namur ,Liège and Verviers. The valley, along with its prolongation along the Haine river to the west and along the Vesdre river to the east, is the historical center of the Belgian steel industry and is therefore also called the sillon industriel in French, the industrial furrow. This industrial region can be divided into several subareas: Borinage (around Mons), Le Centre (around La Louvière, the Pays noir (around Charleroi), Basse-Sambre (near to Namur, the region around Liège and the region around Verviers.

The Walloon Brabant


The North of the Sillon industriel is also the South of Brussels, the old capital of the Duchy of Brabant and the capital of the old Belgian province which was fragmentend in three parts: the Flemish Brabant, Brussels itself (Brussels Capital Region) and the Walloon Brabant. The Walloon Brabant was created in 1995 when the former province of Brabant was split into the three parts. The split was made to accommodate the federalization of Belgium in three regions (Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels, but Walloon Brabant is also a very old name of this region in the North of Wallonia. Walloon in Walloon Brabant is likely one of the first use of  the word.

In the North-West of Hainaut


The name of the North-West part of Hainaut was generally Hainaut occidental. Since the creation of an autonomous Wallonia, it is also named Wallonie Picarde, underlining by this appelation Wallonia includes the Hainaut occidental and the regional language of its inhabitants (Picard language). The name Wallonia doesn't mean a country where the Walloon language is spoken but in a wide sense, a country where Romance languages were spoken for a long time vis-à-vis the other inhabitants of the Low countries where Germanic languages were spoken.

The most important city of the Wallonie picarde is Tournai which is also the oldest city of the Low countries. The Tournai Cathedral, has been classified both as a Wallonia's major heritage and as a World Heritage Site.Tournai is labelled on Tabula Peutingeriana. Tournai gives its name to the Tournaisian: ''The “Calcaire de Tournai” comprises the limestone forma-tions cropping out in the Mélantois-Tournaisis Anticline (...) which have been quarried since the Roman conquest. Its relationship with the succession of the Dinant area was only understood following study of the Asile d’Aliénés borehole at Tournai and the Vieux-Leuze borehole at Leuze [...] These boreholes exhibited a rather typical middle Tournaisian succession below the “Calcaire de Tournai” that was easy to correlate with the succession of the Dinant area.

The largest find of Iguanodon remains to date occurred in 1878 in a coal mine at Bernissart, at a depth of 322 m (1056 ft).

Casterman, an important company based in Tournai. published Franco-Belgian comics In 1934, Casterman took over the Le Petit Vingtième editions for the publication of the albums of The Adventures of Tintin. And after the great success of Hergé's albums, authors such as Jacques Martin, François Craenhals and C. & V. Hansen, the first albums of Corto Maltese by the Italian author Hugo Pratt? The company established its monthly magazine (A Suivre), which was to have an impact on the comics revival of the 1990s. It is now part of the Flammarion Publishing group.

Saluk in Calenelle (Péruwelz) produces and distributes billiard balls under the registered trademark Aramith in more than 85 countries, and has a marketshare of 80 % worldwide (90 % of the US market)

The Ardennes


L' Ardenne (Wallonian spelling), is an old mountain formed during the Hercynian orogeny as for instance in France the Armorican Massif, the Massif Central and the Vosges. At the bottom of these old mountains, coal, iron, zinc, and other metals are often found in the sub-soil. This geologic fact explains the greatest part of the geography of Wallonia and its history. In the North and West of the Ardennes lie the valleys of the Sambre and Meuse rivers, forming an arc Sillon industriel going across the most industrial provinces of Wallonia, for example Hainaut, along the river Haine (the etymology of Hainaut) : the Borinage, the Centre and Charleroi along the river Sambre,  Liège along the river Meuse.

The Ardennes is the most popular region of Wallonia for tourism. This geological region is also very important in the history of Wallonia because this old mountain is at the origin of the economy, the history, and the geography of Wallonia. ''Wallonia presents a wide range of rocks of various ages. Some geological stages internationally recognized were defined from rock sites located in Wallonia : e.g. Frasnian (Frasnes), Famennian (Famenne), Tournaisian (Tournai), Visean (Visé), Dinantian (Dinant) and Namurian (Namur)'' The Tournaisian excepted, all these rocks are in the Ardennes viewed as a geological area.

The Ardennes includes the greatest part of the province of Luxembourg (number 4), the south of the province of Namur (number 5) and the province of Liège (number 3), and a very small part of Hainaut (number 2). There were the first furnaces in the four Walloon provinces, using, before the 18th century, charcoal which was made in the Ardennes forest. This industry was also in the extreme South of the Luxembourg, in the region called Gaume. After this century, the most important part of the Walloon steel industry, using then coal, was built around the coal-mines, principally in the region around the cities of Liège, Charleroi, La Louvière, the Borinage, and further in the Walloon Brabant (in Tubize). Wallonia became the second industrial power of the world in proportion to its territory and to its population (see further). L' Ardenne is the origin of the most important event in the history of Wallonia : the industry. This region had also a very important strategic role during World War I and World War II.

The industry
The Flemish economy was bound up with the production of cloth, particularly of linens. It is not the case for Wallonia except three Walloon arrondissements : Arrondissement of Ath, Arrondissement of Tournai (in the  Hainaut occidental), and  Arrondissement of Verviers in the East of the Province of Liège.

From the Roman Empire to the industrial Revolution
The industrial revolution in the Sillon industriel has other origins. Wallonia is different from Flanders even on the economic plan. The Sillon industriel includes four industrial basins (Borinage, La Louvière - called Centre - Charleroi, Liège) and a semi-industrial basin in Namur :

"During ancient times these fourth basin was a major center of iron manufacture and one of the important industrial areas of the Roman Empire. With the fall of the Empire, however, iron was more or less displaced by various types of brass or bronze, and the local centers of medieval metalworking in Belgium moved to Huy and out of the iron regions, on up the Meuse river to the forested areas around Dinant and Chimay. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the iron masters of Liège evolved a method of refining iron ore by the use of a blast furnace. Called the Walloon Method, this development was instrumental in making possible the re-substitution of iron for brass after the fifteenth century. Apart from increasing the industrial importance of Liège, however, it apparently did not otherwise relocate the centers of metal production. There were a few coalmines around Liège, Charleroi, and the Boringae as early as the thirteenth century but their production was small. The main medieval use of coal was neither for household heating nor for metalworking. Rather, it was principally consumed as a fuel by various industries such as breweries, dyeworks, soap and brick factories, and by the important glassmaking industry that sprang up in the Charleroi basin during the fourteenth century. Coal was mined in those days as a kind of rural, part-time enterprise to supplement peasant incomes."

The Walloon Method. Beginning of the industrial Revolution


During the Middle-Age and mainly the Renaissance within the context of the demand for iron for artillery, important technological developments in iron working occurred in Wallonia (...) of particular importance in the County of Namur County of Hainaut (...) Principality of Liège, called Walloon method (usually in English Oregrounds iron). Peter N.Stearns defined this Waloon method and its dissemination: ''The "Walloon Method" entailed raising the hearths of the furnaces, mixing iron and charcoal together, and subjecting the whole to an air blast. Whereas previously impurities had been removed by heating the ore to a pasty mass and then beating it; thisd new process got rid of them by actually melting the metal. The procedure rapidly spread fromLiège throughout Europe and revolutionized Pig iron production This method will be revealed in Sweden, England and Germany by Walloon workers.''

Peter N.Stearns wrote:''The improvement of the blast furnace and the development of the puddling process, both originating in England during the last half of the eighteenth century, accelerated the substitution of coke for charcoal. The first puddling furnace was not installed in Belgium until 1821, while the first coke-fed blast furnace didnot appear until two years later. By 1850, however, there were as many furnaces using coke as charcoal, and by 1870 the extensive use of charcoal in metalworking had been discontinued almost everywhere but in a few small establishments in Luxembourg and Namur provinces. Under the impact of these developments metalproduction moved out of the forested areas into the coal-producting vicinities of Charleroi and Liège. It was the perfection of the steam engine, however, which troggered the Industrial revolution in Belgium. In many ways the growth of steam power can serve as an index for the develoment of that revolution itself, since it was both a major cause and a major effect of its continuance. The earliest kind of steam-operated machine,a Newcomen-type steampump, was in use in mines near Liège as early as 1723 an dat Charleroi by 1725. THe first steamengines, bases on Watt's modifications, appeared on the continent in a cannon foundry at Liège in 1803. The meager four horsepower produced by the two machines installed there grew to 1,400 by 1830, to 30,000 by 1840 and to 100,000 by 1860.

Image:Musée Curtius.jpg| The rich house of Curtius in Liège, one of the first capitalist (Weapons industry:17th century).

The industrial Revolution: a rich Wallonia depending on Brussels
Professor Michel Quévit wrote Wallonia has been a prosperous country depending on the financial powers in Brussels. When arriving at the end of the first stage of the industrial revolution, Walloon captains of industry took huge risks because of the large increase of the production. The result was that the High Bank in Brussels took very important financial participation in  the Walloon companies. ''In 1847, it is done. Brussels became the dominating structure of the Belgian space

The Belgian State: Wallonia depending politically on the North
The language of Belgium's elites, Government, Monarchy,  Bourgeoisie was French in 1830. And if Wallonia is now defined as a French speaking country,  the French choice of the elites in 1830 was not a Walloon choice, in favour of this southern part of Belgium and to the  northern part. French speaking elites at the head of the companies, the industry, the politics were all coming from both Flanders and Wallonia. It was not an ethnic choice but a social choice.

Quickly, Wallonia found it to its cost:''In the history of Belgium, the legislative elections held on 11 June 1884 represent a pivotal point for the total victory of the Catholic Pary over Walthère Frère-Orban's liberals opened the way for thirty years of homogeneous governments, thirty years of domination by that party, whose main power was in Flanders. Above all, this 1884 victory had the effect - to quote Robvert Demoulin - of shifting the country's political centre of gravity from the South to towardd the North.