Climate

Under the Köppen climate classification, Brussels experiences an oceanic climate (Cfb). Brussels' proximity to coastal areas influences the area's climate by sending marine air masses from the Atlantic Ocean. Nearby wetlands also ensure a maritime temperate climate. On average (based on measurements over the last 100 years), there are approximately 200 days of rain per year in the Brussels-Capital Region, the highest amount of any European capital.^[54] Snowfall is infrequent, averaging 24 days per year. In Brussels there are often violent thunderstorms.

[hide]Climate data for Brussels
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Record high °C (°F)	15.3 (59.5)	20.0 (68)	24.2 (75.6)	28.7 (83.7)	34.1 (93.4)	38.8 (101.8)	37.1 (98.8)	36.5 (97.7)	34.9 (94.8)	27.8 (82)	20.6 (69.1)	16.7 (62.1)	38.8 (101.8)
Average high °C (°F)	5.7 (42.3)	6.6 (43.9)	10.4 (50.7)	14.2 (57.6)	18.1 (64.6)	20.6 (69.1)	23.0 (73.4)	22.6 (72.7)	19.0 (66.2)	14.7 (58.5)	9.5 (49.1)	6.1 (43)	14.2 (57.6)
Daily mean °C (°F)	3.3 (37.9)	3.7 (38.7)	6.8 (44.2)	9.8 (49.6)	13.6 (56.5)	16.2 (61.2)	18.4 (65.1)	18.0 (64.4)	14.9 (58.8)	11.1 (52)	6.8 (44.2)	3.9 (39)	10.54 (50.97)
Average low °C (°F)	0.7 (33.3)	0.7 (33.3)	3.1 (37.6)	5.3 (41.5)	9.2 (48.6)	11.9 (53.4)	14.0 (57.2)	13.6 (56.5)	10.9 (51.6)	7.8 (46)	4.1 (39.4)	1.6 (34.9)	6.9 (44.4)
Record low °C (°F)	−21.1 (−6)	−18.3 (−0.9)	−13.6 (7.5)	−5.7 (21.7)	−2.2 (28)	0.3 (32.5)	4.4 (39.9)	3.9 (39)	0.0 (32)	−6.8 (19.8)	−12.8 (9)	−17.7 (0.1)	−21.1 (−6)
Average precipitation mm (inches)	76.1 (2.996)	63.1 (2.484)	70.0 (2.756)	51.3 (2.02)	66.5 (2.618)	71.8 (2.827)	73.5 (2.894)	79.3 (3.122)	68.9 (2.713)	74.5 (2.933)	76.4 (3.008)	81.0 (3.189)	852.4 (33.559)
Average precipitation days	19.2	16.3	17.8	15.9	16.2	15.0	14.3	14.5	15.7	16.6	18.8	19.3	199
Average snowy days	5.2	5.9	3.2	2.4	0	0	0	0	0	0	2.4	4.6	24.1
Average relative humidity (%)	86.6	82.5	78.5	72.5	73.2	74.1	74.3	75.5	80.9	84.6	88.2	88.8	80
Mean monthly sunshine hours	59	77	114	159	191	188	201	190	143	113	66	45	1,546
Source: KMI/IRM[55]

Demographics

Population

Population density of Europe, Brussels is located between the largest urban centres

Brussels is located in one of the most urbanised regions of Europe, between Paris, London, Rhine-Ruhr, and the Randstad. The Brussels-Capital Region has a population of around 1.2 million and has witnessed in recent years a remarkable increase in its population. In general, the population of Brussels is younger than the national average and the gap between rich and poor is wider.^[56]

	01-07-2004[57]	01-07-2005[57]	01-07-2006[57]	01-01-2008[57]	01-01-2015[57]
Brussels-Capital Region[57]	1.004.239	1.012.258	1.024.492	1.048.491	1.181.272
-- of which foreigners[57]	262.943	268.009	277.682	295.043	385.381

Nationalities

Largest groups of foreign residents[58]
Nationality	Population (2016)
France	62,507
Romania	38,690
Morocco	38,274
Italy	32,322
Spain	28,042
Poland	26,399
Portugal	19,791
Bulgaria	11,371
Germany	10,527
Democratic Republic of the Congo	8,846

Brussels is home to a large number of immigrants. At the last Belgian census in 1991, 63.7% of inhabitants in Brussels-Capital Region answered that they were Belgian citizens, born as such in Belgium. However, there have been numerous individual or familial migrations towards Brussels since the end of the 18th century, including political refugees (Karl Marx, Victor Hugo, Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Léon Daudet for example), from neighbouring or more distant countries as well as labour migrants, former foreign students or expatriates, and many Belgian families in Brussels can claim at least one foreign grandparent.
Brussels has a large concentration of immigrants and their children from other countries, including many of Turkish and Moroccan ancestry, together with French-speaking black Africans from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.
People of foreign origin make up nearly 70%^[59] of the population of Brussels, most of whom have been naturalized following the great 1991 reform of the naturalization process. About 32% of city residents are of non-Belgian European origin, and 36% are of another background, mostly from Morocco, Turkey and Sub-Saharan Africa. Among all major migrant groups from outside the EU, a majority of the permanent residents have acquired Belgian nationality.^[60]

Languages

See also: Francization of Brussels

Estimate of languages spoken at home (Capital Region, 2013)^[61]

  French

  Dutch and French

  Dutch

  French and other language

  Neither Dutch nor French

Since the founding of the Kingdom of Belgium in 1830, Brussels has transformed from being almost entirely Dutch-speaking (Brabantian dialect to be exact), to being a multilingual city with French (specifically Belgian French) as the majority language and lingua franca. This language shift, the Francization of Brussels, is rooted in the 18th century and accelerated after Belgium became independent and Brussels expanded past its original boundaries.^[62][63]

Manneken Pis is a well-known public sculpture in Brussels

French-speaking immigration contributed to the Frenchification of Brussels; both Walloons and expatriates from other countries, mainly France, came to Brussels in great numbers. However, a more important cause for the Frenchification was the language change over several generations from Dutch to French that was performed in Brussels by the Flemish people themselves. The main reason for this was the political, administrative and social pressure, partly based on the low social prestige of the Dutch language in Belgium at the time; this made French the only language of administration, law, politics and education in Belgium and thus necessary for social mobility.^[64] From 1880 on, faced with the necessity of using French in dealing with such institutions, more and more Dutch-speakers became bilingual, and a rise in the number of monolingual French-speakers was seen after 1910. Halfway through the 20th century the number of monolingual French-speakers surpassed the number of mostly bilingual Flemish inhabitants.^[65]
Only since the 1960s, after the fixation of the Belgian language border, and after the socio-economic development of Flanders was in full effect, could Dutch stem the tide of increasing French use.^[66] Through immigration, a further number of formerly Dutch-speaking municipalities in surrounding Brussels became majority French-speaking in the second half of the 20th century.^[67][68][69] This phenomenon is, together with the future of Brussels, one of the most controversial topics in all of Belgian politics.^[70][71]

Bilingual signs in Brussels

Given its Dutch-speaking origins and the role that Brussels plays as the capital city in a bilingual country, the administration of the entire Brussels-Capital Region is fully bilingual, including its subdivisions and public services. Nevertheless, some communautarian issues remain. Flemish political parties demanded for decades that the Flemish part of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde arrondissement be separated from the Brussels Region (which made Halle-Vilvoorde a monolingual Flemish arrondissement). BHV was divided mid 2012. The French-speaking population regards the language border as artificial^[72] and demands the extension of the bilingual region to at least all six municipalities with language facilities in the surroundings of Brussels.^[73] Flemish politicians have strongly rejected these proposals.^[74][75][76]
The original Dutch dialect of Brussels (Brussels) is a form of Brabantic (the variant of Dutch spoken in the ancient Duchy of Brabant) with a significant number of loanwords from French, and still survives among a minority of inhabitants called Brusseleers, many of them quite bi- and multilingual, or educated in French and not writing in Dutch. Brussels and its suburbs have evolved from a Dutch-dialect–speaking town to a mainly French-speaking town. The ethnic and national self-identification of the inhabitants is quite different along ethnic lines.
For their French-speaking Bruxellois, it can vary from Belgian, Francophone Belgian, Bruxellois (like the Memellanders in interwar ethnic censuses in Memel), Walloon (for people who migrated from the Wallonia Region at an adult age); for Flemings living in Brussels it is mainly either Flemish or Brusselaar (Dutch for an inhabitant) and often both. For the Brusseleers, many simply consider themselves as belonging to Brussels. For the many rather recent immigrants from other countries, the identification also includes all the national origins: people tend to call themselves Moroccans or Turks rather than an American-style hyphenated version.
The two largest foreign groups come from two francophone countries: France and Morocco.^[77] The first language of roughly half of the inhabitants is not an official one of the Capital Region.^[78] Nevertheless, about three out of four residents are Belgian nationals.^[79][80][81]
In recent decades, owing to migration and the city's international role, Brussels is home to a growing number of foreign language speakers. In 2013, figures cited in the Marnix Plan show that 63.2% of Brussels inhabitants are native speakers of French, while less than 20% are native Dutch speakers. Just 2.5% speak English as their mother tongue, but 29.7% of people living in the city claim to speak English well or very well.^[82] Even though some people want English to be used as an unofficial compromise language between Dutch and French, French remains the lingua franca. And laws still require Dutch and French translations in most cases. The acceptance of English as a language for communication with the city's public servants depends entirely on the knowledge of this language by the public servants, though they must accept questions in French and Dutch.^[83]
The migrant communities, as well as rapidly growing communities of EU-nationals from other EU-member states, speak many languages like French, Turkish, Arabic, Berber, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, German, and (increasingly) English. The degree of linguistic integration varies widely within each migrant group.

Religions

St. Mary's Royal Church, a 19th-century Roman Catholic church in Brussels

Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Koekelberg

Although historically majority Roman Catholic, especially since the expulsion of Protestants in the 16th century, most residents of Brussels are nonreligious, with only about 10% of Catholics regularly attending church services. In reflection of its multicultural makeup, it hosts a variety of religious communities, as well as large numbers of atheists and agnostics. Minority faiths include Islam, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism, and Buddhism.
Recognized religions and Laïcité enjoy public funding and school courses: every pupil in an official school from 6 years old to 18 must choose 2 hours per week of compulsory religion – or Laïcité – inspired morals.^{[citation needed]}
Brussels has a large concentration of Muslims, mostly of Turkish and Moroccan ancestry. Belgium does not collect statistics by ethnic background, so exact figures are unknown. It was estimated that in 2005 people of Muslim background living in the Brussels Region numbered 256,220 and accounted for 25.5% of the city's population, a much higher concentration than those of the other regions of Belgium.^{[84][better source needed]}

Regions of Belgium[84] (1 January 2005)	Total population	People of Muslim origin	% of Muslims
Belgium	11,371,928	781,887	6.9%
Brussels-Capital Region	1 180 531	306,938	25%
Wallonia	3,395,942	136,596	4.0%
Flanders	6,043,161	235,935	3.9%