Azerbaijan currently has diplomatic relations with 160 countries: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, the People's Republic of China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Libya, Luxembourg, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Republic of India, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Due to the low level of investment in cross-border railway projects, the city has preserved a slot within the Thalys high-speed train network which uses existing tracks on its last 70 km from Belgium to Cologne.

) Hilton also claims a Roman Catholic monarch would therefore be unable to be crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury and points to the examples of European states that have similar religious provisions for their monarchs: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, whose constitutions compel their monarchs to be Lutherans, the Netherlands, the constitution of which insists its monarchs be members of the Protestant House of Orange, and Belgium, which has a constitution that provides for the succession to be through Roman Catholic houses.

Postal service in Belgium is in many cases performed by Belgian Post Group, a semi-privat public company which has as a monopoly on letters until 50g weight.

Belgium has numerous copper cable internet providers:

Belgium has three major fiberglas cable internet providers:

For international communications, Belgium has 5 submarine cables and a number of satellite earth stations, two of which are Intelsat, and one Eutelsat.

In 2009 Belgium has 20 major media companies active in numerous telecommunications media subsectors.

Belgium has also 1 heliport.

Non-ferrous metallurgy has prospered because the Pirdop copper smelting plant was bought by Union Minière of Belgium and because export markets have been favourable.

Fort Dodge Animal Health has their vaccines available for multiple European Countries ( vaccination will start in 2008 in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain and Italy ).

At one point, almost every major city in the US had a velodrome or two for track racing events, however since the middle of the 20th century cycling has become a minority sport in the US whilst in Continental Europe it continues to be a major sport, particularly in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Italy and Spain.

This optional protocol has been ratified by all EU states except five ( namely Belgium, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and United Kingdom ).

Parliament has two meeting places, namely the Louise Weiss building in Strasbourg, France, which serves for twelve four-day plenary sessions per year and is the official seat, and the Espace Léopold () complex in Brussels, Belgium, the larger of the two, which serves for committee meetings, political groups and complementary plenary sessions.

In the Netherlands and Belgium, where euthanasia has been legalized, it still remains homicide although it is not prosecuted and not punishable if the perpetrator ( the doctor ) meets certain legal exceptions.

In the late 20th century, Belgium became a federal state in which the Dutch-speaking part was given autonomy as the Flemish Community () and the Flemish Region (); these two entities were effectively merged, and Flanders now refers to the territory of the Flemish Community, which additionally has partial jurisdiction over Brussels.

In the second half of the twentieth century, however, there has been a gradual shift of political and economic power to Flanders, which, having modernized its economy, is now more wealthy and prosperous than its southern counterpart .< ref >" Belgium.

It has over 6 million inhabitants, or about 60 % of the population of Belgium.

Belgian journalist Jo Gérard has claimed that a family manuscript dated 1781 recounts that potatoes were deep-fried prior to 1680 in what was then the Spanish Netherlands and is now present-day Belgium, in the Meuse valley: " The inhabitants of Namur, Andenne, and Dinant, had the custom of fishing in the Meuse for small fish and frying, especially among the poor, but when the river was frozen and fishing became hazardous, they cut potatoes in the form of small fish and put them in a fryer like those here ".

The metropolitan area, including the outer commuter zone, covers an area of and has a total population of 594, 582 as of 1 January 2008, which ranks it as the fourth most populous in Belgium.

As one of the largest cities in Belgium, Ghent has a highly developed transportation system.

On 3 July 2005, the country became the first country in the world to give full marriage and adoption rights to homosexual couples ( Belgium has allowed same-sex marriage since 2003 and co-parenting since April 2006, and the Netherlands has allowed same-sex marriage since 2001 and now has a law in preparation to provide full adoption rights in equal conditions to opposite-sex marriages ).

Hergé is a prominent national hero in his native country, to the extent where he has been described as the actual " personification of Belgium ".

Centime ( from Latin centesimus ) is French for " cent ", and is used in English as the name of the fraction currency in several Francophone countries ( including Switzerland, Algeria, Belgium, Morocco and France ).

The UK brought together several countries ( including some bordering the EEC ) and decided to form the European Free Trade Association in about 1959, soon after the establishment of the 6-nation EEC ( France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands ).

Mainly or partially francophone or francosphere countries include France, Belgium ( Wallonia is almost entirely francophone, and there is a large French-speaking community in the Brussels-Capital Region and a few bordering municipalities ), Canada ( the province of Quebec is francophone, and there are large French-speaking communities in Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and other Canadian provinces ), United States ( South / Central Louisiana and parts of Maine ), Switzerland, Haiti, the French West Indies and several countries in Africa, including Congo, Burundi, Madagascar and Rwanda, that are former French or Belgian colonies.

* 1961 – Sabena Flight 548 crashes in Belgium, killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team, several coaches and family members.

In contrast, in several European countries ( e. g. Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Switzerland ), religious unions have existed for decades.

Ladas were sold as a budget ' no-frills ' vehicle in several Western nations during the 1970s and 1980s, including Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, though trade sanctions banned their export to the United States.

To give two examples, the marble statue of Cristo della Minerva ( church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome ) was covered by added drapery, as it remains today, and the statue of the naked child Jesus in Madonna of Bruges ( The Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium ) remained covered for several decades.

There is also is unitary Belgian nationalism, several versions of a Greater Netherlands ideal, and a German-speaking community of Belgium annexed from Prussia in 1920, and re-annexed by Germany in 1940 – 1944.

Nationalism may involve several recognized nations being involved in a single goal of self-determination uniting the nations, such as binationalism or multinationalism, examples of this occurred in Austria-Hungary, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia.

Diplomatic relations have been severed with several countries including: Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, United States, Belgium, Spain, and the Gulf States.

** A Sabena Boeing 707 crashes near Brussels, Belgium, killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team and several coaches.

In several European countries ( Belgium, Denmark, The Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland ) greyhound racing is carried out by the owners of the dogs without financial interest.

Throughout the year Psyche performed several times in Germany, as well as a festival in Belgium, a date in Lyon, France, and then a performance for the first time ever as a five piece band at the 18th Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig.

The memoir became cause for controversy, because shortly before Derrida published his piece, it had been discovered by the Belgian literary critic Ortwin de Graef that long before his academic career in the US, de Man had written almost two hundred essays in a pro-Nazi newspaper during the German occupation of Belgium, including several that were explicitly antisemitic.

Josquin was born in the area controlled by the Dukes of Burgundy, and was possibly born either in Hainaut ( modern-day Belgium ), or immediately across the border in modern-day France, since several times in his life he was classified legally as a Frenchman ( for instance, when he made his will ).

After Belgium asserted its independence from the Netherlands on 4 October 1830, the Belgian National Congress considered several candidates and eventually asked Leopold to become King of the newly-formed country.

The poor maps referenced in these agreements left Belgium with a claim on the western half of the country ; after several border skirmishes the final borders of the colony were not established until 1900.

When France fell at the end of June 1940, several ministers sought to return to Belgium.

As a result, several new endemic areas were found in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria and surrounding countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, and Italy.

However, a second act of the French King " justified a hostile interpretation ": pursuant to a treaty with Spain, Louis occupied several towns in the Spanish Netherlands ( modern Belgium and Nord-Pas-de-Calais ).

The United States was the third largest donor of aid to Zaire ( after Belgium and France ), and Mobutu befriended several US presidents, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W.

That same year, several new species were reported with red, purple, lilac, and pale yellow coloring, and the first true double flower was produced in Belgium.

Belgium actively seeks improved relations with the new democracies of central and eastern Europe through such fora as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, EU association agreements, and NATO's Partnership for Peace with the former Warsaw Pact countries and several others.

Belgium maintains significant bilateral relations with several countries.