A portion of the Low Countries controlled by Spain from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century (1579-1713) was called the Spanish Netherlands. When part of the Low Countries separated from Spanish rule and became the United Provinces in 1581 the remainder of the area became known as the Spanish Netherlands and was still under the loose control of Spain. The capital was at Brussels in Brabant.
This region comprised modern Belgium as well as much of northwestern France. It originally consisted of the whole of the provinces of Flanders, Artois, Walloon Flanders , Tournai, Cambrai, Luxembourg, Limburg, Hainaut, Namur, and Mechlin, most of the Duchy of Brabant, and the Upper Quarter (Bovenkwartier) of the Duchy of Gelderland. Over a long series of wars including the War of Devolution, the Dutch War, the War of the Reunions, and the Nine Years War France annexed much of the region, including all of Artois, Cambrai, and Walloon Flanders and parts of Flanders, Tournai, Hainaut, and Luxembourg.
Under the Treaty of Utrecht, following the War of the Spanish Succession, what was left of the Spanish Netherlands were ceded to Austria and thus became known as the Austrian Netherlands. This was done mostly to counter the French, at the insistence of the British and Dutch. After the French Revolution, in 1794 the entire region was overrun by France ending the existence of this territory as a Spanish/Austrian Netherlands.
After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 the region was given to the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, however in 1830 it separated and became the independent state of Belgium.
See also