Established the official border between France and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, boundaries still largely intact today between France, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
Key Facts
- Date signed
- 28 March 1820
- Signed at
- Broelmuseum (Museum of Arts), Kortrijk
- Parties
- France and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands
- Border markers set up
- 1819, prior to treaty signing
- Last boundary committee meeting
- 1930
- 2021 border violation
- Belgian farmer moved marker 2.2 metres into France
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Following the Napoleonic Wars and the reorganisation of European borders, France and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands required a formal, legally binding demarcation of their shared frontier. Border markers had been placed along the French-Netherlands border in 1819 as a preparatory step toward a comprehensive boundary agreement.
On 28 March 1820, representatives of France and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands signed the Treaty of Kortrijk in what is now the Broelmuseum in Kortrijk. The treaty formally delineated the boundary between the two states and established a committee mechanism for resolving future border disputes, with meetings held as recently as 1930.
Belgium inherited the defined border upon gaining independence from the Netherlands in 1830. The boundaries established by the treaty remain, with only minor corrections, the official borders between Belgium and France and between Luxembourg and France to this day, demonstrating the treaty's enduring legal effect across nearly two centuries.
Political Outcome
Formal delimitation of the France–Netherlands border, later inherited by Belgium and Luxembourg upon Belgian independence in 1830; boundaries remain largely in force today.