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.)
Politics of Flanders
Historically, the contemporary Flemish community (or nation, as some Flemings see it) grew out of the Catholic southern part of the medieval XVII provinces of the Low Countries. The contemporary Belgian Flanders area was divided within several feudal states. The most important states were the County of Flanders (except for its southernmost areas), the southern part of the Duchy of Brabant (except for the area around Nivelles) and the northern part of the Bishopric of Liège. Most of these states were united from 1384 to 1530 under the Burgundian Netherlands