Belgium, Wisconsin

The name says Belgium, but the founders were Luxembourgers, farmers who began arriving in northern Ozaukee County in the eighteen forties. The name came from a clerical mix-up that swapped Luxembourg and Belgium, and it stuck. By the late nineteenth century, at least two hundred and fifty Luxembourger families farmed the communities of Belgium, Fredonia, Holy Cross, Lake Church, and Port Washington, making this one of the densest Luxembourg-American settlements in the country. Since nineteen seventy-seven, Belgium has been home to the Luxembourg American Cultural Society, still supported by Luxembourg's Ministry of Culture.