1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
Belgium
Compare this sourced profile of Brussels, Belgium before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Brussels—1,019,022, Europe/Brussels, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: municipality in the Brussels-Capital Region and capital of Belgium.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Brussels is GeoNames ID 2800866. Its recorded administrative path is Bruxelles-Capitale → Brussels Capital → Belgium, and GeoNames classifies the place as a capital of a political entity. Brussels occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2024-05-03; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Brussels ranks 537 by recorded population. Inside the 2 selected Belgium entries it ranks 1; inside the 125 entries in its broad region it ranks 39. Its 1,019,022 population value is 1.32 times the 774,135 median for the country cohort and 1.53 times the 664,046 regional median. Brussels is rank 1 among the 2 selected Belgium entries, so a percentage band would overstate this small cohort. Brussels's recorded value is above the country-cohort median but remains below twice that benchmark. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Brussels's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Antwerp at 41.302 km with 529,247 recorded people; Rotterdam at 119.549 km with 868,135 recorded people; Amsterdam at 173.481 km with 741,636 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 132.179 km. Compared with Antwerp, Brussels's recorded population is 1.93 times as large. Against Brussels, Antwerp follows Provincie Antwerpen → Flanders → Belgium in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected Belgium cohort, uses the shared Europe/Brussels identifier, and carries populated place rather than capital of a political entity. Its recorded population is below Brussels's. Against Brussels, Rotterdam follows Rotterdam → South Holland → Netherlands in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Netherlands cohort rather than Belgium, uses Europe/Amsterdam instead of Europe/Brussels, and carries populated place rather than capital of a political entity. Its recorded population is below Brussels's. Against Brussels, Amsterdam follows Gemeente Amsterdam → North Holland → Netherlands in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Netherlands cohort rather than Belgium, uses Europe/Amsterdam instead of Europe/Brussels, and carries the same capital of a political entity class. Its recorded population is below Brussels's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 365 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Brussels's nearest-coordinate gap sits in the second quarter of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 2800866, the coordinate pair 50.8505 / 4.3488, country rank 1 of 2, and neighbor GeoNames 2803138 at 41.302 km bind Brussels to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Brussels's reference point is 50.8505° north and 4.3488° east. The IANA identifier Europe/Brussels is shared by 2 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLC is shared by 129 rows. Brussels's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Brussels's point falls in the higher-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Brussels's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Brussels, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Brussels's closest other entries in this atlas are Antwerp (41.302 km), Rotterdam (119.549 km), Amsterdam (173.481 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Brussels, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2024-05-03; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.