Belgium comprises 589
municipalities (; ; ) grouped into five
provinces in each of two
regions and into a third region, the
Brussels-Capital Region, comprising 19 municipalities that do not belong to a province. In most cases, the municipalities are the smallest administrative subdivisions of Belgium, but in municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, on initiative of the local council, sub-municipal administrative entities with elected councils may be created. As such, only
Antwerp, having over 500,000 inhabitants, became subdivided into
nine districts . The Belgian
arrondissements (also in
French as well as in
Dutch), an administrative level between province (or the capital region) and municipality, or the lowest judicial level, are in
English sometimes called districts as well.