BELGIUM

Source: Asian studies in Belgium - Pierre-Henry de Bruyn, University of La Rochelle, France, and Paul Servais, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium (2009). See the original text here SHORT HISTORY Oriental studies were first taught and studied in Leuven, Belgium, as early as the beginning of the 16th century, in a period when the countries now called Holland and Belgium still formed a loose entity called the Low Countries, which were part of the Habsburg empire of Spain, ruled by Charles.