Counts of Loon
| County of Loon | ||||||||||
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Grafschaft Loon (de) Graafschap Loon (nl) Comté de Looz (fr) |
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| State of the Holy Roman Empire | ||||||||||
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 Coat of arms
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 The Low Countries around 1250, Loon (Looz) in yellow
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| Capital |
Borgloon Hasselt |
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| Languages | Limburgish | |||||||||
| Religion | Roman Catholicism | |||||||||
| Government | Principality | |||||||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | |||||||||
| • | First mentioned | 1040 | ||||||||
| • | Gained Rieneck | 1106 | ||||||||
| • | Acquired Chiny | 1227 | ||||||||
| • | To Heinsberg | 1336 | ||||||||
| • | Annexed by Liège | 1366 | ||||||||
| • | Incorporated by France |
1795 | ||||||||
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The County of Loon (Dutch: Graafschap Loon, French: Comté de Looz) was a province of the ancien regime Holy Roman Empire, mainly lying west of the Meuse river (Dutch: Maas) in present-day Flemish-speaking Belgium, and east of the old Duchy of Brabant. Its territory once it reached its maximum extent corresponded closely to that of the current Belgian province of Limburg. The most important cities (bonnes villes) of the county were Beringen, Bilzen, Borgloon, Bree, Hamont, Hasselt, Herk-de-Stad, Maaseik, Peer and Stokkem. Like other areas which eventually came under the power of the Prince Bishop of Liège, Loon had many links with the rest of Belgium, but was never formally part of the unified lordship which united much of the Benelux before the French revolution when the ancien regime came to an end. Under various new names, and joined with other territories in the region, it first became part of France, and then of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, before finally spitting out to join the new Kingdom of Belgium definitively in 1839.
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