Romance Flanders
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Coat of arms of the Counts of Flanders

Romance Flanders or Gallicant Flanders is the part of the county of Flanders where people speak romance languages (then called "Walloon") like varieties of picard. It is actually straddling the border of France and Belgium.

Name

In early modern English, it was also called Welch Flanders or Gallike Flanders. The original French name is Flandre Gallicane or Flandre Gallicante, derived from the Latin term : Gallo Flandria or Flandria Gallica.

The term Walloon Flanders should not be used to designate the entire region, as it refers only to a part of Gallicant Flanders. It was used to refer to the part of Romance Flanders that adhered to the Union of Arras in 1579 and was annexed to France after the Treaties of Nijmegen (in both cases, Mouscron, for instance, was not a part of Walloon Flanders). The use of Walloon Flanders is political, not linguistic as Romance Flanders or Gallicant Flanders.

Territory

Map of Romance Flanders (1645)

Map of Romance Flanders in the "De Vyerighe Colom" Atlas (1696)

• In France :
  • The Lilloise Flanders (in French Flandre Lilloise, in Dutch Rijsels-Vlaanderen) ;
  • The northern part of the Scarpe plain with the Pévèle and the bailiwick of Douai (Douaisis);

• In Belgium :
  • The historical Tournaisis (in Dutch Doornikse);
  • The regions of Mouscron and Comines, bilingual communes of (or part of) the old castelleny of Courtray;

See also

• Walloon Flanders
• Maritime Flanders