Zeelandic Flanders (Dutch: Zeeuws-Vlaanderen [ˌzeːusˈflaːndərə(n)] ; Zeeuws: Zeêuws-Vlaonderen; West Flemish: Zêeuws-Vloandern) is the southernmost region of the province of Zeeland in the south-western Netherlands. It lies south of the Western Scheldt that separates the region from the remainder of Zeeland and the mainland Netherlands to the north. Zeelandic Flanders is bordered to the south and to the east by Belgium.
Zeelandic (Zeeuws: Zeêuws; Dutch: Zeeuws [zeːu̯s] ; West Flemish: Zêeuws) is a group of language varieties spoken in the southwestern parts of the Netherlands. It is currently considered a Low Franconian dialect of Dutch, but there have been movements to promote the status of Zeelandic from a dialect of Dutch to a separate regional language, which have been denied by the Dutch Ministry of Internal Affairs. More specifically, it is spoken in the southernmost part of South Holland (Goeree-Overflakkee) and large parts of the province of Zeeland, with the notable exception of eastern Zeelandic Flanders.
It has notable differences from Standard Dutch mainly in pronunciation but also in grammar and vocabulary, which separates it clearly from Standard Dutch. This makes mutual intelligibility with speakers of Standard Dutch difficult.
The County of Zeeland (Dutch: Graafschap Zeeland) was a county of the Holy Roman Empire in the Low Countries and it later became one of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic. It covered an area in the Scheldt and Meuse delta roughly corresponding to the modern Dutch province of Zeeland. The County of Zeeland did not include the region of Zeelandic Flanders which was part of Flanders; conversely, the modern Province of Zeeland does not include Sommelsdijk, historically part of the County of Zeeland.
Zeeland (Dutch: [ˈzeːlɑnt] ; Zeelandic: Zeêland [ˈzɪəlɑnt]), historically known in English by the exonym Zealand, is the westernmost and least populous province of the Netherlands. Located in the south-western corner of the country, it borders North Brabant to the east, South Holland to the north, and an international border with Belgium to the south and west (Flemish provinces of East and West Flanders).
Zeeland consists of a number of islands and peninsulas (hence its name, meaning "Sealand"), with only the southern part (Zeelandic Flanders) not being an island or peninsula. Its capital is Middelburg with a population of 48,544 as of November 2019, although the largest municipality in Zeeland is Terneuzen (population 54,589). Zeeland has two seaports: Vlissingen and Terneuzen. Its area is 2,933 square kilometres (1,132 sq mi), of which 1,154 square kilometres (446 sq mi) is water; it had a population of about 391,000 as of January 2023.
Flemish (Vlaams [vlaːms] ) is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (Vlaams-Nederlands), Belgian Dutch (Belgisch-Nederlands [ˈbɛlɣis ˈneːdərlɑnts] ), or Southern Dutch (Zuid-Nederlands). Flemish is native to the region known as Flanders in northern Belgium; it is spoken by Flemings, the dominant ethnic group of the region. Outside of Belgium Flanders, it is also spoken to some extent in French Flanders and the Dutch Zeelandic Flanders.
West Flemish (West-Vlams or West-Vloams or Vlaemsch (in French Flanders), Dutch: West-Vlaams, French: flamand occidental) is a collection of Low Franconian varieties spoken in western Belgium and the neighbouring areas of France and the Netherlands.
West Flemish is spoken by about a million people in the Belgian province of West Flanders, and a further 50,000 in the neighbouring Dutch coastal district of Zeelandic Flanders (200,000 if including the closely related dialects of Zeelandic) and 10–20,000 in the northern part of the French department of Nord. Some of the main cities where West Flemish is widely spoken are Bruges, Kortrijk, Ostend, Roeselare and Ypres in Belgium and Hazebrouck, Cassel, Halluin, and Bailleul in France.
Terneuzen (Dutch pronunciation: [tərˈnøːzə(n)] ) is a city and municipality in the southwestern Netherlands, in the province of Zeeland, in the middle of Zeelandic Flanders. With almost 55,000 inhabitants, it is the most populous municipality of Zeeland.