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.
History of Flanders
The contemporary territory of Flanders (i.e., the Flemish Region as the Dutch-speaking part of the Kingdom of Belgium) contains within it the core of the old county, West Flanders and East Flanders, plus three more provinces to the east which were not originally part of Flanders. These are the provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant which were historically part of the Duchy of Brabant, and the province of Belgian Limburg, which was part of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. (The city of Brussels, historically part of Brabant, is now politically part of the Flemish Community but not of the Flemish Region.)