BELGIUM  .—The records are numerous and valuable .

State Records comprise all those of the central governments, 1 the modern kingdom, of the governments preceding it and of the various states such as Brabant, Flanders, Gueldres and Hainault out of which Belgium was formed . They are preserved partly at Brussels as General Records of the Kingdom and partly in provincial repositories . Thus at Ghent are archives of the county of Flanders, at Liege of the principality of that name and of the duchy of Limburg, at Mons of the county of Hainault, at Bruges of the liberty of Bruges and other jurisdictions of eastern Flanders; at Namur, Arlon, Bassett and Tournai are repositories of less importance: at the same time the repository at Brussels contains many records of the same kind as those in the provincial offices and is the chief one of the country; the collection there has been formed from various collections in Belgium combined with records restored by the Austrian government and other acquisitions . Archives Provinciales, the records of provincial administrations since 1794, are placed in the chief towns of each province: each collection falls into three periods, French (1794–1814), Dutch (1814–183o) and Belgian . Municipal Archives.—The most important are those of Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent, R'Ialines, Mons, Tournai and Ypres . The best book of general bibliographical reference for Belgian records is Pirenne's Bibliographie de l'histoire de Belgique .