ABSTRACT
Belgium became an independent state when it seceded from the Netherlands after the 1830 revolution. A number of journalists played a prominent part in this revolution and even collaborated on writing the Constitution, which was very progressive for its time and guaranteed freedom of the press. Since the first constitutional step toward federalization was taken in 1970, Belgium has evolved toward a state structure that divides the country into three communities—Dutch-, French-, and German-speaking—and three regions. The largest region is Flanders, the northern Dutch-speaking part of Belgium with about 6.2 million inhabitants. The French-speaking community comprises about 3.5 million Belgians, most of them living in the Walloon region. The third region, the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital region, has about 1 million inhabitants (Statistics Belgium 2010a).
