Provinces of Belgium
During the second half of the 20th century, Belgium transitioned from a unitary state to a federal state with three Communities and three Regions. As part of the state reforms, the (bilingual) province of Brabant was split in 1995 three ways: into two (unilingual) provinces (Flemish Brabant and Walloon Brabant) and into the (bilingual) Brussels-Capital Region. (The Brussels-Capital Region does not belong to any province, is not a province, and does not contain any provinces.) The two new Brabant provinces became part of the Flemish Region and the Walloon Region respectively. The remaining eight provinces became part of these regions as well, so the Flemish Region and the Walloon Region each contain five provinces.
United Belgian States
The United Belgian States was a confederal republic of eight provinces which had their own governments, were sovereign and independent, and were governed directly by the Sovereign Congress (; ), the confederal government. The Sovereign Congress was seated in Brussels and consisted of representatives of each of the eight provinces. The provinces of the republic were divided into 11 smaller separate territories, each with their own regional identities:In 1789, a church-inspired popular revolt broke out in reaction to the emperor's centralizing and anticlerical policies. Two factions appeared: the "Statists" who opposed the reforms, and the "Vonckists" named for Jan Frans Vonck who initially supported the reforms but then joined the opposition, due to the clumsy way in which the reforms were carried out.