Flemish Region Culture & Language

Flemish culture's defining historical achievement is its painting: the Flemish Primitives, led by Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling, flourished in 15th-century Bruges, Ghent, Mechelen and Leuven, producing work -- including the Ghent Altarpiece in St Bavo's Cathedral -- credited among the first major oil paintings and central to the Northern Renaissance. Two centuries later, Antwerp's Peter Paul Rubens became the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque, running a large workshop that supplied nobility and collectors across Europe; his altarpieces still hang in Antwerp Cathedral, the church he painted them for.

That historical weight coexists with a living regional culture: Dutch is the region's official language and central to Flemish identity, a status the 19th- and 20th-century Flemish Movement fought to establish within a then French-dominated Belgian state. Ghent's ten-day Gentse Feesten and Bruges' hosting of the Tour of Flanders each spring are major annual expressions of that living culture, and Belgian beer culture -- recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage in 2016 -- runs through Flemish daily life, from Trappist monastery breweries to Leuven's Stella Artois, brewed there since 1926.

Dutch is the official language of the Flemish Region, spoken as a first language by around 60% of Belgium's population overall. English is very widely spoken and understood in tourist contexts across Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Leuven and Mechelen, and visitors should have little difficulty communicating in English in hotels, restaurants and shops.

French, Belgium's other major language, is generally less useful in Flanders than in Wallonia or Brussels; addressing locals in Dutch or English, rather than French, is generally better received in the Flemish Region, reflecting the region's own linguistic history and the Flemish Movement's long campaign for Dutch-language recognition.