This article offers an overview of shifts in mortality in Belgium from the nineteenth century to the present, particularly in terms of sociodemographic and spatial disparities. It analyzes these shifts in mortality according to age and sex since the early nineteenth century, drawing from a review of the literature and using data from the Human Mortality Database (HMD). For the more recent analyses (1991–2015), data from the National Register, population censuses and official death records were matched up. In Belgium, the average life expectancy is now 80 years, twice as long as 170 years ago. As in other Western countries, however, disparities persist and sometimes even widen. There are thus major inequalities between social groups in regards to death, and these have been worsening since at least the early 1990s. These inequalities are apparent for each cause of death and ages at death, for women and for men. Spatial inequalities in mortality by region, district and residential area have also widened over at least the past quarter century. Even within similar social groups there are spatial disparities in mortality, indicating that environmental, cultural and behavioural factors affect mortality in the same way for each social group.