After the Belgian Revolution of 1830, the Southern Netherlands (including South and Central Brabant) became independent as Belgium and later also Luxembourg. The province was then renamed simply Brabant and became the central province of Belgium, with its capital city Brussels. The province contained three arrondissements: Brussels, Leuven and Nivelles.
In 1961–1963, the language border was established, from which the province was divided into a Dutch-speaking region, a French-speaking region and the bilingual Brussels. The Brussels arrondissement was split to this end. In 1989, Brussels-Capital Region was created, but the region was still part of the province of Brabant. In 1995, the province of Brabant was split into the Dutch-speaking Flemish Brabant, the French-speaking Walloon Brabant and the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The Brussels-Capital Region exercises the powers of a Province on its own territory.
Demographics
As comparison, the current two provinces of Brabant, together with Brussels, had 2,621,275 inhabitants in January 2011.