Low Countries

The Low Countries (Dutch: Lage Landen) are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany. The term is more appropriate to the era of the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Europe when strong centrally governed nations were slowly forming and territorial governance was in the hands of a noble or of a noble house.

Historically, after the Roman denomination of it as Gallia Belgica, the region politically had its origins in Middle Francia, more precisely its northern part which became the Duchy of Lower Lotharingia. After the disintegration of Lower Lotharingia, the Low Countries were brought under the rule of various stronger neighbors. Their possessions can be renamed into the Burgundian Netherlands and the succeeding Habsburg Netherlands, also called the United Seventeen Provinces (up to 1581), and later for the Southern parts as the Spanish Netherlands and Austrian Netherlands, whereas the northern parts formed the autonomous Dutch Republic. At times they reached a form of unity as the United Seventeen Provinces in the 16th Century, and later the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in the 19th Century. The French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish names for the Netherlands, les Pays-Bas, i Paesi Bassi, Países Baixos and los Países Bajos (literally translated "the Low Countries"), are based on this historical context.