Cities/Brussels

Who lives where in Brussels

1,252,365 residents by current nationality, 1 January 2025. One dot ≈ 5 people, placed at random inside each of 138 neighbourhoods (Monitoring des Quartiers). The Belgian nationality group starts hidden so the minorities stand out — click any group to show or hide it, and hover an area for its official counts.

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What the colours mean

Current nationality. Groups are legal nationality, not origin: Belgians of Moroccan, Turkish or Congolese background who hold Belgian nationality count as Belgian. So the map understates every foreign-origin group, most of all North Africans and Turks.

  • Belgian nationality788,168 · 63.1%

    Holds Belgian nationality, including dual nationals and naturalised Belgians of any origin.

  • EU14200,201 · 16.0%

    Nationals of the other 13 pre-2004 EU states plus Ireland: France, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and others.

  • EU13 (joined 2004–2013)87,228 · 7.0%

    Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Baltics and the other EU states that joined from 2004.

  • Rest of Europe32,615 · 2.6%

    European nationalities outside the EU-27 (UK, Ukraine, Russia, Balkans and others).

  • Türkiye8,719 · 0.7%

    Turkish nationality.

  • North Africa39,299 · 3.1%

    Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt.

  • Sub-Saharan Africa26,901 · 2.2%

    Every African nationality outside North Africa.

  • Latin America11,490 · 0.9%

    Every nationality in the Americas except the US and Canada.

  • Other OECD7,269 · 0.6%

    US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Israel.

  • Other nationalities47,683 · 3.8%

    All other nationalities, stateless people and refugees of unknown origin.

  • Group not published2,792

    Industrial zones and parks where IBSA withholds the nationality split.

What is exact and what is not

  • Exact: how many people of each group live in each of the 138 neighbourhoods (Monitoring des Quartiers), as published by the source below. The Exact areas view and the hover numbers show these figures directly.
  • Not exact: where a dot sits inside its neighbourhood. Dots are scattered at random within the area's boundary — including over parks, railways or water inside it — so a dot never marks a real home, and a pattern smaller than one neighbourhood is not in the data.
  • Rounded: each count becomes count ÷ 5 dots, rounded up or down at random, so very small groups in an area can show one dot more or fewer than the exact figure would give.

Source and method

Counts: IBSA (Brussels Institute for Statistics and Analysis), from Statbel's National Register — Monitoring des Quartiers, theme Population › Nationalités, 2025.

Boundaries: Quartiers du Monitoring des Quartiers (IBSA / perspective.brussels).

Method: IBSA publishes each group as a share of the neighbourhood population to two decimals; counts here are share × population, rounded. Belgian = population − foreign nationals (both published counts). Each area's count for each group becomes count ÷ 5 dots (rounded up or down at random, so totals are right on average), scattered uniformly inside the area — a dot's exact position means nothing, only the area does. 250,478 dots in all. Map style after Karim Douïeb's Brussels. A lovely Melting-Pot.

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