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
Written records of the Flemish region begin in Roman times. Julius Caesar left his "Commentaries of the Gaulish War" about his time in the region. Caesar described "Belgium" or "Gallia Belgica" as the northernmost of the three distinct parts of Gaul, and all definitions of Flanders are within this large Belgic area. The inhabitants were collectively called Belgae. The boundaries were the North Sea, the Marne and Seine rivers in the southwest, the Ardennes in the southeast, and the Rhine in the north and east.