Hainaut
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Hainaut
Hainaut
(French, Hainault; Flemish, Henegouwen), a province in Belgium, in the Schelde River basin. Area, 3,800 sq km. Population, 1,322,000 (1975), most of whom are Walloons. The capital is Mons.
Industries in the Mons-Charleroi region include coal mining, metallurgy, and heavy machine building. The region also has chemical, glass, and clothing industries. Agriculture plays an important role in the province’s economy; wheat, sugar beets, flax, and tobacco are cultivated, and livestock are raised.
Hainaut
(French, Hainault; Flemish, Henegouwen), a county formed in Lorraine in the ninth century. Hainaut became an independent feudal domain under the Holy Roman Empire during the 11th and 12th centuries. The counts of Henegouwen were also the counts of Flanders from 1191 to 1246 and the counts of Holland from 1299 to 1354. Between 1428 and 1433, Hainaut came under the rule of the Burgundian dukes. In 1477 (definitively in 1482), Hainaut passed to the Hapsburgs and, along with the other Belgian territories under Hapsburg rule, became one of the 17 provinces of the Netherlands. The southern part of Hainaut was annexed by France in the second half of the 17th century.