Flanders
Flanders shares its borders with Wallonia in the south, Brussels being an enclave within the Flemish Region. The rest of the border is shared with the Netherlands (Zeelandic Flanders in Zeeland, North Brabant and Limburg) in the north and east, and with France (French Flanders in Hauts-de-France) and the North Sea in the west. Voeren is an exclave of Flanders between Wallonia and the Netherlands, while Baarle-Hertog in Flanders forms a complicated series of enclaves and exclaves with Baarle-Nassau in the Netherlands. Germany, although bordering Wallonia and close to Voeren in Limburg, does not share a border with Flanders. The German-speaking Community of Belgium, also close to Voeren, does not border Flanders either. (The commune of Plombières, majority French speaking, lies between them.)
History of Flanders
The entire area passed in 1384 to the dukes of Burgundy, in 1477, who eventually united it politically with their Duchy of Brabant within the Holy Roman Empire. By 1556 the Burgundian Netherlands were being ruled by their successors, the Habsburg kings of Spain. By this time Flanders had been removed from the territory of the Kingdom of France, except that some western districts of Flanders came under French rule under successive treaties of 1659 (Artois), 1668, and 1678.