JHPier said:
I said: "Zeeuws-Vlaanderen is and was as densely populated as any rural part of The Netherlands", rural being the operative word. There are half a dozen or so smallish towns, nowadays of maybe 10-15.000 people, and a larger number of villages, on a piece of land that is a maybe just a tad bigger as Nantucket.
Walcheren merely holds the provincial capital, Middelburg, and the province's main port, Vlissingen, plus a few smaller towns.
So forget about Welcheren, if those cities already existed by mid-19th century, which I suspect is the case.
About the south bank of the schelde, I didn't mean to imply they were totally deserted. However, if, as was the case, AFAIK, the population is limited to some villages, I don't think it is outside of the possibility for them to be handed over by the dutch authorities, if they are compensated with simillar land elsewhere. This was done all the time in 19th century treaties ( for a really extreme exemple, have a look at how the border was drawn at Frankfuhrt treaty - and this is still reflected in french internal divisions nowadays - ).
I have another question about belgium in this TL. What about the linguistic status? Is all of Belgium going to convert to french language by the end of the 19th century, as it nearly was OTL ( antwerpen was 40% french speaking )? Bigger dutch-speaking parts would argue against it. OTOH, a french King in Bruxelles is not really going to encourage the Vlaams language, and this will have repercutions.
