The history of Flanders concerns not only the modern Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, which is now called "Flanders" (Dutch: Vlaanderen), but also several neighbouring territories and populations. Its historical core territory was in western Belgium between the coast and the Scheldt river.

Once a part of ancient and medieval Francia from the inception of the Frankish kingdom (descended from the Empire of Charlemagne) under the Merovingian monarchs such as Clovis I, who was crowned at Tournai, Flanders gradually fell under the control of the English and then Spanish, becoming part of the Spanish Netherlands and retained by Spain at the end of the Eighty Years' War.