Districts of Antwerp in the context of Borgerhout

Belgium comprises 565 municipalities (Dutch: gemeenten; French: communes; German: Gemeinden), 285 of them grouped into five provinces in Flanders and 261 others in five provinces in Wallonia, while the remaining 19 are in the Brussels Capital Region, which is not divided in provinces. In most cases, the municipalities are the smallest administrative subdivisions of Belgium, but in municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, on the initiative of the local council, sub-municipal administrative entities with elected councils may be created. As such, only Antwerp, having over 500,000 inhabitants, became subdivided into nine districts (Dutch: districten).

The Belgian arrondissements (Dutch: arrondissementen; French: arrondissements; German: Bezirke), an administrative level between province (or the capital region) and municipality, or the lowest judicial level, are in English sometimes called districts as well.