German-speaking Community of Belgium

The German-speaking Community of Belgium (German: Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft Belgiens, DG; French: Communauté germanophone de Belgique; Dutch: Duitstalige Gemeenschap België ) is one of the three federal communities of Belgium. Covering an area of 854 km² within the province of Liège (German: Lüttich) in Wallonia, it includes nine of the eleven municipalities of the so-called East Cantons (German: Ost-Kantone). Traditionally speakers of Ripuarian and Moselle Franconian varieties, the local population numbers over 75,000—about 0.70% of the national total. Bordering the Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg, the area has its own parliament and government at Eupen. Although in the Belgian province of Luxembourg many of the inhabitants in the border region next to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg speak Luxembourgish, a West Central German language, they are not considered part of the German-speaking Community. The German-speaking Community of Belgium is composed of the German-speaking parts of the lands that were annexed in 1920 from Germany. In addition, in contemporary Belgium there are also some other areas where Germanic languages were or are spoken (the division line between German, Dutch, Luxembourgish, Limburgish, ... is very thin since they are all part of the same dialect continuum) that belonged to Belgium even before 1920, but they are not currently officially considered part of the German-speaking community in Belgium: Bleiberg-Welkenraedt-Baelen in northeastern province of Liège and Arelerland (city of Arlon and some of its nearby villages in southeastern province of Belgian Luxembourg). However, in these localities, the German language is declining due to the expansion of French.