Voeren

Voeren is a Flemish municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg. Bordering the Netherlands to the north and the Walloon province of Liège to the south, it is geographically detached from the rest of Flanders, therefore making Voeren an exclave of Flanders. Voeren's name is derived from that of a small right-bank tributary of the Meuse, the Voer, which flows through the municipality.The current municipality of Voeren was established by the municipal reform of 1977. On 1 January 2008, Voeren had a total population of 4,207. Its total area is 50.63km2, giving a population density of. About 25% of the population is made up of foreign nationals, most of whom have Dutch nationality.VillagesThe municipality consists of the six villages of 's-Gravenvoeren, Sint-Pieters-Voeren, Sint-Martens-Voeren, Moelingen, Teuven and Remersdaal . 's-Gravenvoeren is the most important and most populous village of the municipality.HistorySince the 11th century, two-thirds of the territory of the present municipality of Voeren was in the county of Dalhem, which was a possession of the Dukes of Brabant, and the remaining one-third in the Duchy of Limburg, which also belonged to Brabant after 1288. Both of these Duchies were part of the Holy Roman Empire but they developed a relatively independent regime ruled by powerful dynasties. They successively became part of the Burgundian Netherlands, the Habsburg Netherlands, and after the Dutch Revolt, part of the Spanish, later Austrian controlled, Southern Netherlands.