In 2022, in terms of population, the biggest cities or municipalities in Belgium were Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, and Brussels. The Flemish cities of Antwerp and Ghent were the most populated in Belgium in 2022. From a regional perspective, out of the 6.8 million people living in Flanders, around 800,000 people lived in one of these two cities. However, the region of Wallonia also had large cities such as Charleroi and Liège. For instance, both cities registered around 200,000 inhabitants each. To put all these numbers into perspective, Belgium’s population amounted to 11.6 million in 2022.

Belgium’s capital city: Brussels

Surprisingly, the Belgian capital, Brussels, was not on top of the list. The reason for this is in the way the city’s population is measured. Brussels is made of 19 municipalities. In this ranking, for instance, only three of them are listed: Brussels City, Schaerbeek, and Anderlecht. These 19 municipalities form the heart of the agglomeration of Brussels which counts 36 municipalities in total and is also known as “le Grand Bruxelles”. In 2019, over a million people were living in this Brussels-Capital Region. The agglomeration of Brussels is the most populated in the country, it is bigger than the agglomeration of Antwerp. Yet in terms of municipalities, Antwerp was the most populated in Belgium in 2020.

Belgium’s five big agglomerations

Belgium faced a population growth of 0.58 percent in 2020. The country counts five big agglomerations: Antwerp, Brussels, Charleroi, Ghent, and Liège. Although the notion of agglomeration is very fluid and disputed, each of these five agglomerations represents a significant part of the population. For some, agglomerations are defined by the continuity of constructions. For others, they are defined by the sense of an urban entity shared by a living community. Nonetheless, the definition of an agglomeration in Belgium corresponds to the European rules. These rules fix the technical specifications regarding the population and housing census. An agglomeration is, therefore, a group of municipalities which includes a continuously built-up zone with no cut of more than 200 meters between two constructions.

Belgium's largest cities in terms of population in 2024 were situated in Flanders. Approximately 544,759 people lived in Antwerpen, making it the biggest city in Belgium. This city was followed by Gent with 269,597 inhabitants in 2024. However, the third and fourth city with the most inhabitants were in the Belgian region of Wallonia. Indeed, Charleroi counted 204,322 inhabitants, and Bruxelles, 196,828 inhabitants.

Population in largest city in Belgium was reported at 2121992 in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Belgium - Population in largest city - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on March of 2025.

This statistic displays the total retail outlets in Belgium in 2019, by city size. There were approximately 330 retail stores in places that had 2,500 to 3,500 inhabitants.

This horizontal bar chart displays hospital beds (per 1,000 people) by capital city using the aggregation sum and is filtered where the country is Belgium. The data is about countries per year.

This horizontal bar chart displays ranking by city and is filtered where the country is Belgium. The data is about universities.

Want to live somewhere quiet? Then the Brussels-Capital Region maybe would not be the place for you. In a country where the population density was highly depended on the region, the Brussels-Capital Region far exceeded the others in terms of residents per square kilometer. Whereas in Brussels over 7,500 people lived per a square kilometer, in the Walloon Region this was only 276. In total, roughly 1.22 million inhabitants lived in the Brussels-Capital Region in 2022.

 Flemish Region has the highest number of inhabitants  

Although the Brussels-Capital Region had the highest population density, it was by no means Belgium’s region with the largest number of inhabitants. On the contrary: both the Flemish and the Walloon Regions had more inhabitants than the Brussels Region. In total, just over ten percent of Belgium’s population lived in Brussels, the rest was divided among Flanders (58 percent) and Wallonia (32 percent).

 Comparison to the other Benelux countries   

Belgium’s population density amounted to 375 inhabitants per square kilometer in 2021. This was significantly lower than the population density in neighboring country the Netherlands, where on average 519 inhabitants lived on a square kilometer. It was however higher than Luxembourg’s population density, which amounted to about 245 inhabitants per square kilometer. This was the lowest population density of all three Benelux countries.

Where can you find the most office space in Belgium? According to calculations based on the number of square meters, most office buildings were in Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent. There were large differences in the market size between the three cities, however. Mechelen and Liège followed in fourth and fifth place with 500,000 square meters of office space, whereas Ypres was ranked the lowest of the 20 cities in this ranking.

In 2023, the population of Belgium was approximately 11.7 million, and has grown by about 113,500 compared to 2022, when the population was 11.58 million.

How is the population distributed by region?
The population of Belgium is divided into three regions: the Flemish, Walloon, and Brussels-capital regions. The population of these regions is not distributed equally. In 2021, the Flemish region had 6.65 million inhabitants, compared to 3.65 million in the Walloon region and 1.22 million in the Brussels-capital region. The distribution between the regions has remained similar since 2009, with population increases in all regions staying relatively similar. With the population of Belgium expected to grow to 11.91 million by 2031, it will be interesting to see where these people will settle themselves.

How does Belgium’s population compare to the rest of Europe?
In 2021, Belgium had the 12th largest population in Europe, putting Belgium one place above Czechia and one below the Netherlands. Russia is the most populated European country with 145.9 million residents, meaning it has about 12.5 times the population of Belgium. The least populated country in Europe other than Vatican city is Gibraltar, with 34,000 inhabitants, meaning it has 0.3 percent of the population of Belgium.

最大城市人口在12-01-2023达2,121,992.000人，相较于12-01-2022的2,109,631.000人有所增长。最大城市人口数据按年更新，12-01-1960至12-01-2023期间平均值为1,701,310.500人，共64份观测结果。该数据的历史最高值出现于12-01-2023，达2,121,992.000人，而历史最低值则出现于12-01-1960，为1,484,676.000人。CEIC提供的最大城市人口数据处于定期更新的状态，数据来源于World Bank，数据归类于全球数据库的比利时 – Table BE.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics。

How many coworking spaces are there in Belgium? According to calculations, there were close to 200 coworking centers in the country in 2019. Together, these made up less than one percent of the total office market in the country. In Brussels, however, the share of flexible workspaces made up more than 20 percent of all office take-up, making the Belgian capital one of Europe’s most common cities for coworking.

Brussels leads the charge for office space in Belgium…

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the city with the highest amount of office space in Belgium was Brussels. There were large differences, however, between Brussels and other Belgian cities. It was forecast that Antwerp, for example, would have roughly two million square meters of office space in 2018, whereas Brussels would have around 12.5 million. Due to the capital’s central location and the presence of European institutions, prime office rents in Brussels were also significantly higher than those found in other Belgian cities.

… but not when it comes to constructing new office space.

One reason why coworking in Brussels might be popular, could be due to construction issues in the Belgian capital. In 2018, there were just 15 building permits for newly constructed commercial real estate in the Brussels-Capital Region (which includes the city of Brussels plus its surrounding villages). This same value reached over 4,000 in the northern, Belgian Dutch-speaking region of Flanders. The vacancy rate of offices in Brussels also reached its lowest value in 2018.

The capacity of hotels (number of beds) in the Brussels-Capital Region in Belgium amounted to a total of approximately 38,600 in 2019. This is an increase compared to the previous year, when hotels offered roughly 37,300 bed spaces in the city of Brussels and its surrounding villages (together making up the Capital region) and the highest volume of beds in the period between 2012 and 2019. Note that Belgium does not report numbers on the city of Brussels itself. Observing the number of hotels in the Region, there were nearly 190 hotels in 2018. The highest volume was registered in 2014, when the Brussels-Capital Region had 201 hotel accommodations.

Increase in beds in Bruges in 2018

Bruges, the capital city of the Western Flanders province of Belgium and the seventh largest city of the country, offered approximately 8,440 hotel beds, a capacity increase of 750 beds compared to the previous year. Regarding the number of hotels, it steadily decreased between 2012 and 2016 from 99 to 90 hotels, before increasing again to 93 hotels in 2017 and 2018.

Majority of the hotel industry revenue generated in Flanders region

In 2017, the revenue of the hotel industry in Belgium amounted to roughly two billion euros in 2018, of which nearly 985 million euros originated from the Flemish region. Furthermore, approximately 655 million euros came from the Brussels-Capital Region, whereas just under 380 million euros of the total revenue of the hotel industry was generated in the Walloon region.

The most office real estate space in Flanders, Belgium was found in Antwerp. Antwerp's office stock amounted to almost 2.4 million square meters in 2021, compared to 1.4 million square meters in Ghent, which was the second largest market in Flanders.

The use of commercial streaming services such as Netflix for watching video on demand grew the most among 16-to-24-year-olds in Belgium in 2019. This according to survey results that looked into online activities from individuals in Belgium and its three regions: Dutch-speaking Flanders, French-language Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region (the city of Brussels with its surrounding villages). The youngest age group in the survey saw the biggest increase between 2018 and 2019, with user penetration growing by ten percentage points. Interestingly, the age group with the second-highest increase was not Millennials aged 25 to 34. Netflix's use among 45-to-54-year-olds grew by roughly seven percentage points.

In the year 1500, the share of Western Europe's population living in urban areas was just six percent, but this rose to 31 percent by the end of the 19th century. Despite this drastic change, development was quite slow between 1500 and 1800, and it was not until the industrial revolution when there was a spike in urbanization. As Britain was the first region to undergo the industrial revolution, from around the 1760s until the 1840s, these areas were the most urbanized in Europe by 1890. The Low Countries Prior to the 19th century, Belgium and the Netherlands had been the most urbanized regions due to the legacy of their proto-industrial areas in the medieval period, and then the growth of their port cities during the Netherlands' empirical expansion (Belgium was a part of the Netherlands until the 1830s). Belgium was also quick to industrialize in the 1800s, and saw faster development than its larger, more economically powerful neighbors, France and Germany. Least-urban areas Ireland was the only Western European region with virtually no urbanization in the 16th and 17th century, but the industrial growth of Belfast and Dublin (then major port cities of the British Empire) saw this change by the late-1800s. The region of Scandinavia was the least-urbanized area in Western Europe by 1890, but it saw rapid economic growth in Europe during the first half of the following century.

In 2024, Russia had the largest population among European countries at 144.8 million people. The next largest countries in terms of their population size were Turkey at 87.5 million, Germany at 84.5 million, the United Kingdom at 69.1 million, and France at 66.5 million. Europe is also home to some of the world’s smallest countries, such as the microstates of Liechtenstein and San Marino, with populations of 39,870 and 33,581 respectively. Europe’s largest economies Germany was Europe’s largest economy in 2023, with a Gross Domestic Product of around 4.2 trillion Euros, while the UK and France are the second and third largest economies, at 3.2 trillion and 2.8 trillion euros respectively. Prior to the mid-2000s, Europe’s fourth-largest economy, Italy, had an economy that was of a similar sized to France and the UK, before diverging growth patterns saw the UK and France become far larger economies than Italy. Moscow and Istanbul the megacities of Europe Two cities on the eastern borders of Europe were Europe’s largest in 2023. The Turkish city of Istanbul, with a population of 15.8 million, and the Russian capital, Moscow, with a population of 12.7 million. Istanbul is arguably the world’s most famous transcontinental city with territory in both Europe and Asia and has been an important center for commerce and culture for over two thousand years. Paris was the third largest European city with a population of 11 million, with London being the fourth largest at 9.6 million.

Based on a comparison of coronavirus deaths in 210 countries relative to their population, Peru had the most losses to COVID-19 up until July 13, 2022. As of the same date, the virus had infected over 557.8 million people worldwide, and the number of deaths had totaled more than 6.3 million. Note, however, that COVID-19 test rates can vary per country. Additionally, big differences show up between countries when combining the number of deaths against confirmed COVID-19 cases. The source seemingly does not differentiate between "the Wuhan strain" (2019-nCOV) of COVID-19, "the Kent mutation" (B.1.1.7) that appeared in the UK in late 2020, the 2021 Delta variant (B.1.617.2) from India or the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) from South Africa.

The difficulties of death figures

This table aims to provide a complete picture on the topic, but it very much relies on data that has become more difficult to compare. As the coronavirus pandemic developed across the world, countries already used different methods to count fatalities, and they sometimes changed them during the course of the pandemic. On April 16, for example, the Chinese city of Wuhan added a 50 percent increase in their death figures to account for community deaths. These deaths occurred outside of hospitals and went unaccounted for so far. The state of New York did something similar two days before, revising their figures with 3,700 new deaths as they started to include “assumed” coronavirus victims. The United Kingdom started counting deaths in care homes and private households on April 29, adjusting their number with about 5,000 new deaths (which were corrected lowered again by the same amount on August 18). This makes an already difficult comparison even more difficult. Belgium, for example, counts suspected coronavirus deaths in their figures, whereas other countries have not done that (yet). This means two things. First, it could have a big impact on both current as well as future figures. On April 16 already, UK health experts stated that if their numbers were corrected for community deaths like in Wuhan, the UK number would change from 205 to “above 300”. This is exactly what happened two weeks later. Second, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly which countries already have “revised” numbers (like Belgium, Wuhan or New York) and which ones do not. One work-around could be to look at (freely accessible) timelines that track the reported daily increase of deaths in certain countries. Several of these are available on our platform, such as for Belgium, Italy and Sweden. A sudden large increase might be an indicator that the domestic sources changed their methodology.

Where are these numbers coming from?

The numbers shown here were collected by Johns Hopkins University, a source that manually checks the data with domestic health authorities. For the majority of countries, this is from national authorities. In some cases, like China, the United States, Canada or Australia, city reports or other various state authorities were consulted. In this statistic, these separately reported numbers were put together. For more information or other freely accessible content, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

It is estimated that Europe had an urbanization rate of approximately 8.5 percent in the year 1800. The Netherlands and Belgium were some of the most heavily urbanized regions, due the growth of port cities such as Rotterdam and Antwerp during Netherlands' empirical expansion, and the legacy of urbanization in the region, which stems from its wool and craft industries in medieval times. Additionally, the decline of their agricultural sectors and smaller territories contributed to a lower rural population. Scotland and England had also become more urban throughout the British Empire's growth, although the agricultural revolution of the previous two centuries, along with the first industrial revolution, then led to more rapid urbanization during the 19th century. In contrast, there was a large imbalance between the east and west of the continent; the two largest empires, Austria and Russia, had the lowest levels of urbanization in Europe in 1800, due to their vast territories, lower maritime presence, and lack of industrial development.

According to results of a 2019 survey, people from Belgium were more concerned about fake news than Internet users from the Netherlands. Roughly 45 percent of the Belgian respondents said they were either very or extremely concerned about “what is real or fake” when thinking about online news, whereas 30 percent of the Dutch respondents mentioned this. Online news, especially video, was used more often in Belgium than in the Netherlands in 2018.

Belgium has multiple online news outlets

Belgium has two main languages: Flemish (or Belgian Dutch) in the northern region of Flanders and French in Wallonia in the south and (parts of) the Brussels Capital-Region (the city of Brussels and its surrounding villages). This leads to large differences in online media consumption in the country. When it comes to Flemish brands, the website of the newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws was used the most frequently on a weekly basis. RTL News was the most popular online news outlet in the French parts of Belgium.

Dutch online news consumption

In the Netherlands, NU.nl was the most used online news brand in 2018: 46 percent of the respondents indicating they used this website. Non-domestic websites were used as well: four percent of the respondents said they used either BBC News online or CNN.com as a source for news. The use of Facebook for posting and sharing news, however, decreased between 2017 and 2018.

The statistic shows the degree of urbanization in OECD countries in 2018. In 2018, Belgium had the highest degree of urbanization among OECD countries with 98 percent of the population residing in urban areas.