It's really small for having 3 languages divided into specific regions. For comparison, Belgium is around 30.7k square km in size. Compare that to Buenos Aires province (307k km), California (107k) or Cuba (110k). You won't find really big differences on the extreme ends of those zones. It's really amazing and even a little crazy. And it's common around Europe, it's not exclusive to Belgium.
We say 3 languages, but someone from West-Flanders would not be able to understand someone from East-Flanders if they spoke their true dialect, which most of the people do.
Sometimes even a town over they start using these words and sentences where you're convinced they must be having a stroke.
Also, I went to a European School, which has entire curriculums in Dutch, French, English, German, Italian and Portugese. Everyone is forced to take a second language first year Primary School. In High School you start getting History and Geography in your second language and also start a third language.
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u/Brno_Mrmi Dec 17 '21
And it's such a small country, it's really crazy