Charleroi

Charleroi is a city in Hainaut Province, Wallonia, Belgium, in the Sambre River valley about 50 kilometers south of Brussels, with 202,421 inhabitants as of January 2022 and a metropolitan area of 522,522 people as of 2008, Belgium's fifth largest after Brussels, Antwerp, Liege and Ghent. Founded in 1666 by the Spanish governor Francisco Castel Rodrigo and named Charle-roi in honor of the five year old King Charles II of Spain, it grew after the Belgian Revolution of 1830 into a major center for coal, steel and glass manufacturing, earning the nickname Pays Noir, or Black Country; it is now the largest city in Wallonia and home to Brussels South Charleroi Airport, which grew from 210,000 passengers in 1998 to 8.3 million in 2023.