The Ardennes

The Ardennes is a low mountain range and forested plateau region spanning parts of Belgium, Luxembourg, France, and Germany, covering roughly 11,200 square kilometers of extensive woodland, rough terrain, and rolling hills and ridges, most of it in the Wallonia region of Belgium and the Eislek of Luxembourg, extending into the Ardennes department and Grand Est region of France and the Eifel of Germany. Hills in the region average 350 to 400 meters in elevation, rising to 694 meters at the Signal de Botrange in the Liege Province of Belgium, and the fast flowing Meuse river and its tributaries have carved steep sided valleys through the landscape. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Ardennes' timber and rivers powered a charcoal based industrial economy that made Wallonia arguably the second great industrial region in the world, and the region's strategic terrain made it the site of major battles in both world wars, including the 1940 Battle of France and the 1944 to 1945 Battle of the Bulge. The Ardennes remains sparsely populated, with Verviers in Belgium and Charleville-Mezieres in France its largest towns.