The
German-speaking Community of Belgium ( ,
DG; ; ) is one of the three
federal communities of
Belgium. Covering an area of 854 km² within the
province of
Liège in
Wallonia, it includes nine of the eleven municipalities of the so-called
East Cantons . Traditionally speakers of
Low Dietsch,
Ripuarian and
Moselle Franconian varieties, the local population numbers over 75,000—about 0.70% of the national total. Bordering the
Netherlands,
Germany and
Luxembourg, the area has its own parliament and government at
Eupen. Although in the Belgian province of
Luxembourg many of the inhabitants in the border region next to the
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg speak
Luxembourgish, a
West Central German language, they are not considered part of the German-speaking Community. The German-speaking Community of Belgium is composed of the German-speaking parts of the lands that were annexed in 1920 from Germany. In addition, in contemporary Belgium there are also some other areas where Germanic languages were or are spoken (the difference line between German, Dutch, Luxembourgish and Limburgish is very slight since they are all part of the same
dialect continuum) that belonged to Belgium even before 1920, but they are not currently officially considered part of the German-speaking Community of Belgium:
Bleiberg-
Welkenraedt-
Baelen in northeastern
province of Liège and
Arelerland (city of
Arlon and some of its nearby villages in southeastern
province of Belgian Luxembourg). However, in these localities, the German language is declining due to the expansion of
French.