Wallonia is the French-speaking southern region of Belgium, covering 55% of the country, and with its capital at Namur. Wallonia is home to the French-speaking Catholic Walloons, and they have been culturally binded to France due to a shared culture and history; Wallonia was a part of the Kingdom of France from 843 until the Duchy of Burgundy conquered the Low Countries during the Hundred Years' War. In 1477, the House of Habsburg inherited Wallonia, and it was a part of Spain's Spanish Netherlands province until 1714 and a part of the Holy Roman Empire's Austrian Netherlands province until 1794. In 1795, the French First Republic annexed Wallonia during the course of the French Revolutionary Wars, but it was added to the Netherlands as a result of the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and became a part of an independent Belgium in 1830. Wallonia suffers from high unemployment and a lower GDP than Flanders, and separatism is a major issue. In 2015, Wallonia had a population of 3,585,214 people.
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