Liege
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Liège (walloon: Lîdje, dutch: Luik, german: Lüttich) is a city in Belgium. It is the cultural centre of the Walloon region of Belgium and the capital of the province of Liège. Liège is also seat of a Roman Catholic bishop. Liege has about 186,000 inhabitants.
The Romans founded the city as „Leodicum“ or „Vicus Leodicus“. In [[717], Liege was made the seat of a bishop and became a cultural centre in the Middle Ages. These bishops ruled the city as Prince-Bishops until the 1790s. In the French Revolution, the cathedral was damaged and partially burned down. In the 19th century, the city lived on coal-mining, its steel industry and trade.
Today Liege has a university and an inner harbour. It is a crossing point on European railway routes, too. The city had a lot of problems since the 1970s because of the end of the steel industry and coal-mining. Because of this, Liege lives mainly on being a connection point in international trade. Liege has one of the highest crime rates in the European Union.
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