Provinces of Belgium
Most of the provinces take their name from earlier duchies and counties of similar location, while their territory is mostly based on the departments installed during French annexation. At the time of the creation of Belgium in 1830, only nine provinces existed, including the province of Brabant, which held the city of Brussels. In 1995, Brabant was split into three areas: Flemish Brabant, which became a part of the region of Flanders; Walloon Brabant, which became part of the region of Wallonia; and the Brussels-Capital Region, which became a third region. These divisions reflected political tensions between the French-speaking Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Flemish; the Brussels-Capital Region is officially bilingual.
List of National Roads in Belgium
The first network consists of national roads, each starting from the capital Brussels and forming a clockwise star.
The second network groups the national roads that are linked to major cities and towns of Belgium, excluding Brussels.
The third network is composed of provincial national roads. The first digit corresponds to a province—from 1 to 9—based upon the old provinces and in alphabetical order in French, thus: Province of Antwerp; Province of Brabant; Province of West Flanders; Province of East Flanders; Province of Hainaut; Province of Liège; Province of Limburg; Province of Luxemburg; and Province of Namur.
Due to linguistic differences, the national road N58 took more than twenty years to build. It does not actually run from Dottignies to Armentières as anticipated because the road is split into two sections: the first stretches from Armentières in France up to Menen where it joins onto the A19 motorway; the other part starts in the village of Dronkaard to the southeast of Menen, and ends in the village of Dottignies.