50 Fun Facts About Luxembourg

Luxembourg's red, white and light-blue flag is often mistaken for which country's flag?

Netherlands. Luxembourg's colours are thought to come from the red lion on blue and white stripes in its rulers' medieval arms; a 2006 proposal to fly that lion instead failed to replace the tricolour.

Which three countries border Luxembourg?

Belgium, Germany and France. Some 200,000 workers, close to half the workforce, commute in from the three every working day, drawn by Luxembourg's high salaries.

Which French author stayed in the Luxembourg town of Vianden in 1871, in a house that is now his museum?

Victor Hugo. He had already visited in 1862 and 1865; in 1871 he lodged by the bridge over the Our and sketched the ruined castle above the town, and his drawings and letters are still shown in the house.

Which language is the only one used to write Luxembourg's laws?

French. A 1984 law made Luxembourgish the national language yet kept French for legislation, because the country's legal system is built on the Napoleonic Code.

Luxembourg's largest foreign community comes from which southern European country?

Portugal. A low birth rate left Luxembourg short of workers, and migration that took off around 1970 made the Portuguese the largest group in a country where nearly half of all residents hold a foreign passport.

Who became Grand Duke of Luxembourg in October 2025 after his father abdicated?

Guillaume V. Henri first made him lieutenant-representative in October 2024, the family's customary step before a handover, then used his Christmas message to say he would abdicate on 3 October 2025.

Which European Union institution has its official seat in Luxembourg City?

The EU Court of Justice. In 1952 the six founding states could not agree on a capital, so Luxembourg City took in the first institutions as a stopgap, and the judges have stayed ever since.

Luxembourg's recorded history begins in 963 when which count acquired the castle on the Bock rock?

Siegfried of the Ardennes. He gave land of his own to St. Maximin's Abbey in Trier in exchange for the rocky spur, and the small fort there, Lucilinburhuc, went on to give the whole country its name.

Which Count of Luxembourg became Holy Roman Emperor in 1312?

Henry VII. Elected German king in 1308, he won the throne of Bohemia for his son before his coronation in Rome, then died near Siena a year later while trying to bring Italy to heel.

Luxembourg's national hero John the Blind died heroically at which 1346 battle?

Crécy. Blind for a decade, he asked his knights to take him far enough forward to strike one blow; Froissart wrote that they tied their bridles together and were found dead around him.

Which Holy Roman Emperor, son of Luxembourg's John the Blind, issued the Golden Bull of 1356?

Charles IV. His Golden Bull named the seven princes who would elect each German king and let a majority of four decide, which left the pope no say in the choice.

What nickname did Luxembourg City's fortress earn for its reputed impregnability?

The Gibraltar of the North. After a seven-month siege in 1795, Carnot told France it had taken the best fortress in Europe after Gibraltar; pulling it down under the 1867 treaty took sixteen years.

The 1839 Treaty of London handed the western half of Luxembourg to which country?

Belgium. The partition cost Luxembourg more than half its territory, and the lost land is still the Belgian province of Luxembourg, which is larger than the country it was cut from.

Which French ruler's 1867 bid to buy Luxembourg from its grand duke nearly brought war with Prussia?

Napoleon III. The sale was agreed for five million guilders, but an outcry in Germany forced Bismarck to object, and a conference in London made Luxembourg a neutral state instead.

Which sentence, taken from an 1859 patriotic song, is known as Luxembourg's national motto?

We want to remain what we are. In Luxembourgish, Mir wëlle bleiwe wat mir sinn: it closes the chorus of De Feierwon, a song written to greet the country's first international railway.

Why did Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde abdicate in 1919?

She was seen as having collaborated with the Germans. She had received the Kaiser during the occupation; after stepping down for her younger sister she entered a Carmelite convent in Italy.

Which Grand Duchess rallied occupied Luxembourg with wartime BBC broadcasts from exile?

Charlotte. Asked to return to her occupied country, she refused, and her voice on the radio made her a figurehead of the resistance until she came home in April 1945.

Which World War II offensive devastated northern Luxembourg in the winter of 1944–45?

The Battle of the Bulge. Most of the country had been freed in September 1944 before the German attack rolled back over the north that December; the last town, Vianden, was liberated only in February 1945.

During the German occupation, which Luxembourg City landmark did the Nazis turn into a concert hall and tavern?

The Grand Ducal Palace. Swastika flags hung down its front and much of its furniture and art was lost; the court moved back in only when the Grand Duchess came home from exile in 1945.

Near which Luxembourg village was the 1985 agreement ending internal European border checks signed?

Schengen. The deal was signed aboard the riverboat Princesse Marie-Astrid at the spot where Luxembourg, France and Germany meet, chosen as a symbol of open borders; only five countries signed at first.

Which founding father of the European Union was born in Luxembourg City?

Robert Schuman. Born in the suburb of Clausen to a father from Lorraine, he grew up a German citizen, became French only after the First World War and went on to propose Europe's coal and steel pool.

Which Luxembourg prime minister drew up the 1970 plan for a single European currency?

Pierre Werner. Often called the father of the euro, he proposed a monetary union in three stages, but the collapse of Bretton Woods in 1971 and the 1973 oil crisis shelved the idea for two decades.

Which American general is buried among his Third Army soldiers at the Luxembourg American Cemetery in Hamm?

George S. Patton. He had run his army from Luxembourg City, survived the war, then died after a car crash in Germany in December 1945 and was buried beside his men, as he had asked.

Luxembourg is slightly smaller in area than which US state?

Rhode Island. Luxembourg was once about four times its present size: three partitions between 1659 and 1839 cut the old duchy down to the 2,586 square kilometres it covers today.

Luxembourg City stands at the confluence of the Pétrusse and which other river?

Alzette. The two rivers have cut deep gorges around the old town and left it perched on cliffs above their valleys, the natural defence that drew first a castle and then a fortress to the spot.

The Bock, site of the original Luxembourg castle, is famous for what network cut into the rock?

Casemates. Austrian engineers enlarged the old castle cellars in the 1740s into galleries that could house 1,200 soldiers, and the tunnels outlasted the fortress above them, which was dismantled after 1867.

Which Northumbrian missionary founded an abbey in Luxembourg in 698 and became the country's patron saint?

Willibrord. Sent to convert the Frisians, he became the first bishop of Utrecht, then built his abbey on a villa estate given to him by the noblewoman Irmina, and chose to be buried there in 739.

What unusual annual event honours Luxembourg's patron saint at the abbey he founded?

A hopping or dancing procession. Every Whit Tuesday, pilgrims in rows linked by white handkerchiefs hop from side to side through the town to the saint's tomb, a rite UNESCO listed in 2010.

Which Luxembourgish runner shocked the 1952 Helsinki Olympics by winning the 1500 metres?

Josy Barthel. Well down the field in the 1948 final, he surprised the crowd and himself four years later with a late burst that beat the American Bob McMillen to the line.

Which Luxembourgish cyclist was awarded the 2010 Tour de France after Alberto Contador's doping case?

Andy Schleck. On stage 15 his chain came off as he attacked in the yellow jersey and Contador rode on; he lost 39 seconds that day, exactly his losing margin in Paris, and was handed the title in 2012.

Which Luxembourger became the first foreign winner of the Tour de France in 1909?

François Faber. Born and raised in France, he held a Luxembourg passport through his father, won five stages in a row in 1909 and was killed in 1915 fighting for France in the Foreign Legion.

Physicist Gabriel Lippmann, born in Hollerich, Luxembourg, won the 1908 Nobel Prize for what?

Colour photography using interference. His plates caught light reflected off a mercury mirror, so the colours contain no dyes at all, but exposures took a minute or more and the method stayed a laboratory curiosity.

Luxembourg-born Jules Hoffmann shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discoveries about what?

Innate immunity. In 1996 he found that fruit flies lacking a gene called Toll, known until then for shaping embryos, died of infections, which revealed a sensor that switches on the body's first defences.

Which Luxembourgish actress starred opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread?

Vicky Krieps. She skimmed the casting email on a bus, took it for a student film and sent in a tape; only when her agent rang did she learn the director was Paul Thomas Anderson.

Luxembourg is home to which broadcaster and satellite operator?

RTL and SES. RTL grew out of Radio Luxembourg, which from 1933 beamed ad-funded pop shows at Britain, where the BBC held a monopoly and carried no advertising; SES runs the Astra satellites from Betzdorf.

What is the Luxembourg dish Bouneschlupp?

A green bean soup with potatoes and bacon. Luxembourg counts it a national dish, yet it is cooked just over the borders too, in Germany's Saarland and in Lorraine; the smoked pork with broad beans is Judd mat Gaardebounen.

Which tribe held the Luxembourg region before the Roman conquest, with a major stronghold on the Titelberg?

The Treveri. When a new Roman road bypassed the Titelberg, the tribe's centre shifted to a city the Romans founded, Augusta Treverorum, and its modern name still carries theirs: Trier.

Which steelmaker, long the world's largest, has its headquarters in Luxembourg City?

ArcelorMittal. It was formed when Mittal Steel bought Arcelor, a group with roots in Luxembourg's own steel firm ARBED, and it led the world in output until China's Baowu overtook it in 2020.

Local legend marries Luxembourg's founding count to which water spirit of European folklore?

Melusina. In the tale she asked for one day a week in private; when the count broke his word, watched her in her bath and saw that she had a tail, she vanished and he never saw her again.

Luxembourg's wartime government in exile signed a 1944 customs treaty in London that founded which union?

Benelux. Its name stitches together the opening letters of its three members; their customs union began in 1948 and served as a trial run for the larger European common market that soon overtook it.

Which of these countries is among the six in Europe smaller than Luxembourg?

Malta. At 316 square kilometres it is about an eighth the size of Luxembourg, yet more than half a million people live there; the other five are Vatican City, Monaco, San Marino, Liechtenstein and Andorra.

A 2017 Luxembourg law gave companies the right to own resources they mine from where?

Outer space. The law declares that space resources can be owned, and Luxembourg backed it with money for asteroid-mining firms willing to move there, then opened a space agency of its own in 2018.

The 1288 Battle of Worringen, where Luxembourg's count fell with his brothers, was fought near which Rhine cathedral city?

Cologne. Its citizens took the field against their own archbishop, Luxembourg's ally, and his defeat left the city free to govern itself; Worringen is now a district on Cologne's northern edge.

Luxembourgish grew out of which group of German dialects?

Moselle Franconian. Germans just over the border around Trier speak dialects of the same family; what sets Luxembourgish apart is the large stock of words and phrases it has taken from neighbouring France.

Which border town, Luxembourg's oldest, grew up around an abbey founded in 698?

Echternach. Its monks made gospel books lettered in gold for emperors, and the basilica over their founder's tomb, blown up by retreating German troops in December 1944, was rebuilt and reconsecrated in 1953.

Which military engineer rebuilt Luxembourg City's fortress after France captured it in 1684?

Vauban. He had directed the siege that broke the fortress, then rebuilt and enlarged the very defences he had just battered; what is left of them has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994.

In 2020 Luxembourg became the first country in the world to do what nationwide?

Make public transport free. Since 29 February 2020 nobody needs a ticket for its buses, trams or trains, a move meant to ease the country's traffic jams; only first-class rail seats still cost money.

Revolutionary France annexed Luxembourg in 1795 and ran most of it as which new department?

Département des forêts. The revolutionaries named departments after rivers, mountains and other natural features so that the old provinces and their loyalties would fade; this one took its name from the Ardennes woods.

What is the hilly northern third of Luxembourg, part of the Ardennes, called?

The Éislek, known in English as the Oesling. Thin soils and a colder, wetter climate than the fertile south have left its forested plateau thinly settled, with castle ruins above the deep river valleys.

Which Luxembourg-born photographer's exhibition The Family of Man is housed in Clervaux?

Edward Steichen. He built the show of 503 photographs for New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1955; after ten million people had seen it on tour, he asked that the last complete set hang in Clervaux Castle for good.