BE · Curated travel guide
Grand-Place, Tournai Cathedral, Stoclet Palace and 7 more — what each one is, and why it is worth the detour.
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Chosen from everything Wikidata knows about Belgium and ranked by how many Wikipedia language editions describe them, which is about as close to "famous" as open data gets. 3 are on UNESCO's World Heritage list.
World Heritage
Square and UNESCO World Heritage Site in Brussels, Belgium
Also called the Grote Markt, the central square of Brussels, lined with lavish Baroque guildhalls of the old Guilds of Brussels and two larger buildings: the city's Flamboyant Town Hall, and the neo-Gothic King's House, or Bread House, which houses the Brussels City Museum.
Photo: Trougnouf, CC BY 4.0
World Heritage
Catholic cathedral in Tournai, Belgium
The Cathedral of Our Lady in Tournai, Belgium, a Roman Catholic cathedral and see of the Diocese of Tournai. It has been a major heritage site of Wallonia since 1936 and a World Heritage Site since 2000.
Photo: self-made composite, from photos taken by Jean-Pol Grandmont, CC BY 2.5
World Heritage
Building and UNESCO World Heritage Site by Josef Hoffmann in Brussels, Belgium
Also called the Stoclet House, a historic mansion in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, a municipality of Brussels. The Austrian-Moravian architect Josef Hoffmann designed it for Adolphe Stoclet, a Belgian financier, and it was built from 1905 to 1911 in the Vienna Secession style.
Photo: Busoni, CC BY-SA 3.0
Landmark building in Brussels, Belgium
A modernist landmark in Brussels, built as the centrepiece of the Brussels World's Fair of 1958. André Waterkeyn, an engineer, designed it with two architects, Jean and André Polak, to honour scientific progress and show off the Belgian engineering of the time; it stands on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau in Laeken, where the fair was held.
Photo: Zairon, CC BY-SA 4.0
Highest point in Belgium
The highest point of Belgium and of Wallonia, 694 metres up in the High Fens: the top of a broad plateau, crossed by a road that passes a café beside it.
Photo: LucT, CC BY-SA 3.0
Roman Catholic cathedral in Antwerp, Belgium
A Roman Catholic cathedral in Antwerp, today the seat of the Diocese of Antwerp. Work started in 1352, and though the first phase ended in 1521, it has never been completely finished.
Photo: Rolf Kranz, CC BY-SA 4.0
Canal in Belgium
A canal in northeastern Belgium named after King Albert I. It links Liège with Antwerp, and the Scheldt with the Meuse.
Photo: Paul Hermans at Dutch Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
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Cathedral in Brussels, Belgium
Usually called by locals the Cathedral of St. Gudula, or just St. Gudula, a medieval Catholic cathedral in central Brussels, dedicated to Saint Gudula and Saint Michael, the city's patron saints, and a leading example of Brabantine Gothic.
Photo: Donaldytong, CC BY-SA 3.0
Basilica in Brussels, Belgium
Brussels' Catholic National Basilica of the Sacred Heart, both a parish church and a minor basilica, inspired by the Sacré-Cœur basilica of Paris.
Photo: Giles Laurent, CC BY-SA 4.0
Inactive Belgian fortress on the Belgian–Dutch border
A Belgian fortress, no longer in use, on the Belgian-Dutch border between Maastricht and Liège, near the Albert Canal, outside the village of Ében-Émael. It was built to defend Belgium against a German attack across the thin strip of Dutch land in the area.
Photo: Paul Hermans, CC BY-SA 4.0
Officially the Kingdom of Belgium, a country of Northwestern Europe in the coastal lowlands called the Low Countries. It is bounded by the North Sea on the west, the Netherlands on the north, Germany on the east, Luxembourg on the southeast and France on the south. Belgium's 30,689 km² (11,849 sq mi) hold over 11.8 million people, a density of 383/km² (990/sq mi), 22nd in the world and sixth in Europe.
Officially The Kingdom of Belgium. Known locally as België, Belgique, Belgien.
Based on the Wikipedia article, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0: the facts are Wikipedia's, the wording is this site's.
This guide lists 10: Grand-Place, Tournai Cathedral, Stoclet Palace and Atomium and others. Grand-Place, Tournai Cathedral and Stoclet Palace are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
By machine, from open data, with no human ranking them and nobody able to pay for a place on the list. Everything Wikidata records in Belgium that is a building, a landform, a protected area or a tourist attraction, has coordinates, a photograph and an English Wikipedia article, is ranked by how many Wikipedia language editions wrote about it. Provinces, cities, airports, stations and stretches of sea shared with the neighbours are filtered out.
3 of the 10 in this guide: Grand-Place, Tournai Cathedral and Stoclet Palace. That is not the full count for Belgium, only the listed sites that made this guide.
Dutch, French, German. The currency is EUR.
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| 2GB per day Cheapest | 2 GB | 1 day | $1.81 | Get it → |
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