BRUSSELS METRO MAP Belgium HD

Brussels, the capital of Belgium, is also one of the official capitals of the European Union with most institutions having their headquarters here. The city (about1 million inh.) is right in the centre of the country and bilingual: French and Dutch, and therefore many station names are also bilingual.The Brussels Métro started as a pré-métro system which could be compared to German Stadtbahn systems (Cologne, Stuttgart, Essen, Hannover, etc.) with important sections of underground tunnels used by various tram routes. In 1969, the first tram tunnel along todays line1 was opened between Schuman and De Brouckère, and in 1970 todays line2 between Madou and Porte de Namur. Today lines1,2, 5 and 6 are operated as full metro lines, whereas the north-south city tunnel and the outer ring tunnel in the east are still used by trams stopping at low-level platforms.In Sept. 2003, a 2.7 km extension of Line 1B from Bizet to Erasme Hospital opened with 4 new stations: La Roue/Het Rad, CERIA/COOVI, Eddy Merckx and Erasme/Erasmus. The last 800 m and Erasme/Erasmus station are on the surface. All stations have an island platform which is directly accessible from street level without a mezzanine.On 4 April 2009, the ring line was finally completed with the opening of the section between Delacroix and Gare de lOuest (Weststation). At the same time the existing network was re-arranged, introducing lines 5 and 6:Line