Mons

Mons is the capital of Hainaut, made into a fortified city by Count Baldwin IV of Hainaut in the twelfth century. Trade followed the walls, and the commercial buildings around the Grand-Place went up on the proceeds. King William I of the Netherlands strengthened the fortifications again in 1814 after the fall of the First French Empire, and the Industrial Revolution and coal turned the town into a centre of heavy industry. The old centre climbs to a belfry on the hill, and the surrounding coal landscape has been left legible rather than cleared away.