[3] The community is composed of nine municipalities in Liège Province, Wallonia, within the Eupen-Malmedy region in Eastern Belgium.

Traditionally the community and the wider area around it forms an intersection of various local languages and/or dialects, namely Limburgish, Ripuarian and Moselle Franconian varieties.

The community has an area of 854 km2 (330 sq mi), and has a population of around 79,000 (as of January 2024) – about 7.0% of Liège Province and about 0.7% of the national total.

The East Cantons were part of the Rhine Province of Prussia in the German Empire until 1920 (as the counties (Landkreise) of Eupen and Malmedy), but were annexed by Belgium following Germany's defeat in World War I and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles.

[5] At this point, the French government, fearing for the stability of the broader postwar order, intervened with Brussels and the Belgian-German talks were called off.

Today the German-speaking Community has a fair degree of autonomy, especially in language and cultural matters, but it still remains part of the region of predominantly French-speaking Wallonia.

that the German-speaking Community should also become its own region, which is an ongoing process with the permanent transfer with the previous accord of some competences concerning social policy, conservation of sites and monuments, environment protection policy, transport, the financing of municipalities, among other things from the Walloon Region.

[7] According to the government of the German-speaking Community, special consideration should be given to regional autonomy for spatial planning, city building, and housing.

Men represent 49.72% with a slightly lower proportion of the total population of the German-speaking community, women are in the majority with 50.28%.