Wallonia

Wallonia (French: Wallonie [walɔni], German: Wallonie(n), Dutch: Wallonië [ʋaːˈloːni.ə], Walloon: Walonreye Walloon pronunciation: ​[walɔ̃ʀɛjɜ]; Luxembourgish: Wallounesch) is a region of Belgium. It is predominantly French-speaking. It accounts for 55% of the territory of Belgium and a third of its population. Unlike Flanders, the Walloon Region was not merged with the French Community of Belgium which is the political entity that is responsible for matters related mainly to culture and education. The German-speaking minority in the east forms the German-speaking Community of Belgium, which has its own government and parliament for culture-related issues. The demonym for Wallonia is Walloon.

During the industrial revolution, Wallonia was second only to the United Kingdom in industrialization, capitalizing on its extensive deposits of coal and iron. This brought the region wealth, and, from the beginning of the 19th to the middle of the 20th centuries, Wallonia was the more prosperous half of Belgium. Since World War II the importance of heavy industry has greatly declined, and the Flemish Region surpassed Wallonia in wealth as Wallonia economically declined. Wallonia now suffers from high unemployment and has a significantly lower GDP per capita than Flanders. The economic inequalities and linguistic divide between the two are major sources of political conflict in Belgium.

Wallonia (disambiguation)

Wallonia commonly refers to:

Wallonia may also refer to:

3198 Wallonia

3198 Wallonia (1981 YH1) is a Mars-crossing asteroid discovered on December 30, 1981 by François Dossin at Haute-Provence Observatory. With an absolute magnitude (H) of 13, the asteroid is about ~10 km in diameter. It is one of the largest Mars-crossing asteroids as few Mars-crossing asteroids have an absolute magnitude brighter than 13.

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