The challenge is to establish an alternate Belgium that while losing Flanders to the Netherlands, still manages to have a sizable population of Dutch / Flemish speakers and even a significant number of English speakers (who largely outnumber of the OTL German speakers).

The latter would entail the current OTL French departments of Pas-de-Calais and Nord (or at least large areas) eventually becoming part of this ATL Belgium, since the region was said to have once had a large number of Dutch / Flemish speakers.

It would also entail a wanked ATL Pale of Calais where the English likely engage in a program of Anglicisation (along with immigration of English speakers), prior to somehow becoming part of the Spanish Netherlands instead of the Kingdom of France as in OTL and eventually becoming part of ATL Belgium.

How would things in this ATL Belgium be different compared to OTL with the Walloons making up a small majority followed in descending order by the Flemish, English and Germans? Also which city would end up being the ATL capital city of Belgium in the absence of Brussels?
 
Envision this ATL Belgium roughly having the following borders.

ATL Belgium.png
 
The most likely capital would be Liege. Belgium's Flemings/Dutch minorities would likely constantly revolting and attempting to unify with the Netherlands. Unless the British guarantee Belgium, the Netherlands will invade and annex Belgium asap.
 
ATL Belgium is incomplete without the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the Trier-Bitburg region; however, it would need a PoD where either most, if not all, of Wallonia (particularly within the Meuse River basin) to be Germanic-speaking or the Grand Duchy and Trier-Bitburg area remained Romance-speaking.
 
When do you want the POD? If you don't mind a POD in the 16th or early 17th century, it should be doable. Most of the red areas belonged to the Spanish Netherlands, except the area around Calais. If Spain manages to avoid losing it to France and even manages to gain Calais and the region around it, it could later turn into a Belgium analogue. It is a bit harder for the Netherlands to expand, but maybe this could work:
The Netherlands does better in the early days of the Dutch revolt (no betrayal of Rennenberg, 10 years of Maurice is extended to 15 years, etc.) and when the French got involved, Spain decides to mainly focus on France, while letting the Dutch be, who manages to capture most of Flanders and Brabant. Meanwhile Spain keeps France at bay and even manages to capture some territory. End result, roughly the map you showed.

That said, the red parts barely have any native Dutch speakers. It just has the Dunkirk region, the Voer region and the Platt Dietse/Deutche area* and possibly some border areas that speak/used to speak a Dutch dialect. It consist mostly of Walloon aor Francophone areas.
If we talk about captital, I am uncertain what it would be. It lacks Brussels, it lacks Liege, which was part of the independent Bishopric of Liege. I guess it could becomepart ofthis land at a later stage, but that would not makeit a capital. My guess would be that Artois would becomethe capital. maybe Mons. If you include Luxemburg, that would make the most likely capital.


If you want a 1800 POD that is a lot harder. You need a realy different Congress of Vienna analogue that wants to punish France instead of treating it as a major power and one that is perfectly willing to create some unusual buffer country between the Netherlands and France, while not willing to give tha buffer country to the Netherlands proper, while still willing to give the Netherlands Flanders. it would be an unusual decision of early 19th century rulers.


* including the platt Diets/Deutche area is stretching the definition of Dutch quite far, usualy it is considered more closely related to German, I think.
 
The PODs can be as early as the 8th century where the OTL Germanic-Romance linguistic border largely resided in today's Pas-de-Calais between Middle Dutch and Picard up to as late as the early 17th century.

The challenge is how make sure the Germanic-Romance linguistic border does not shift northeast to the same degree like in OTL so there is still a significant number of Dutch speakers in parts of OTL Wallonia (plus Nord & Pas-de-Calais), while increasing the English speaking component of this ATL Belgium so they end up being the 3rd largest group with their own region.

The rough map was intended to keep Liege a part of the ATL Belgium.
 
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Liege looks like it is in ATL Belgium. The only problem is the fact that it's close the the Dutch and German borders.
 
Liege looks like it is in ATL Belgium. The only problem is the fact that it's close the the Dutch and German borders.
Liege isn't much closer to the Dutch border than OTL and the German border hasn't changed at all.
 
Why not Charleroi? It is more centrally located than Liege.
I thought Charleroi was an industrial city and not terribly important before the Industrial revolution. I think Mons would be a better choice for a capital than Charleroi.
 
Which of the following would have been a suitable capital of this ATL Belgium out of Mons, Namur, Artois and Valenciennes?

Or would it have been better off to locate a new capital somewhere between Valenciennes and Mons?
 
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