Hesbaye

It has been one of the main agricultural regions in what is now Belgium since before Roman times, and specifically named in records since the Middle Ages, when it was an important Frankish pagus or gau, called Hasbania in medieval Latin.

Major parts of three Belgian provinces are dominated by the Hesbaye landscape, important for both tourism and agriculture, and by some definitions it stretches further: Geographically, Hesbaye borders on several similar regions of rolling hills: In contrast, to the north it borders on the flat sandy Kempen region.

[5] The Hesbaye is often divided into two divisions based on stratigraphy, with the boundary running through Sint-Truiden, Borgloon and Tongeren in Dutch-speaking southern Limburg.

The southern "Dry" division is somewhat more fertile and the ground water sinks more easily; in this region sugar beet, chicory, flax, rapeseed and grains (90% of which is wheat and barley) are cultivated.

[7] In Roman times, Haspengouw formed the fertile agricultural core area of the Civitas Tungrorum, containing its capital in Tongeren, and with sandy Toxandria to the north of it in the Campine, and the stony hills of the Condroz and Ardennes to the south.

The Salian Franks were allowed to settle in Toxandria in the 4th century, while the more heavily populated Haspengouw remained more Romanized.

In the 8th century, Robert, who has been proposed as an ancestor of the Capetians, was described as a Duke or Count of Hasbania, implying that in his lifetime maybe it formed one large political area.