English: Waterloo, many-hued plain

The Battle of Waterloo did not occur exclusively at Waterloo but also over a vast area further South. The limits of the battelfield have been debated since 1906. Lastly, the bi-centenary of the 18 June 1815 Battle approaching, the area protected as historical site has been extended to a whopping 9,96 km² – and presented to UNESCO for being listed. As such, the battlefield is now shared by Waterloo (35%), Lasne (55%) and Braine-l'Alleud (10%).

The reason why Sunday June 18, 1815 is forever linked to Waterloo is because Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington dated his famous Waterloo Despatch (File:18 June 1815 – Victory at Waterloo – The Waterloo Despatch.jpg) to the British government announcing the victory of the Allied forces over Napoleon's army from his temporary headquarter in the center of Waterloo (now a museum : File:18 June 1815 – Victory at Waterloo – Duke of Wellington's Headquarter.jpg). More precisely, the Duke started to write the Depatch in the early hours of Monday 19th, and completed it by noon same day once back at his headquarter at Brussels File:18 June 1815 – Victory at Waterloo – Wellington's Residence at Brussels.jpg, ready to be sent off to London.

Incidentally, the Lion's Mound, most prominent monument of the battelfield, is erected on the territory of nearby Braine-l'Alleud, not Waterloo.

Plans for a monument commemorating the Battle emerged itself almost immediately. In 1817, with Europe back at peace after 20 endless years of Napoléonic Wars, Wilhelm I, King of the Netherlands (then incorporating today's Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) decided to build a monument where his son Wilhelm (1792–1849) had been wounded towards the end of the Battle.

Out of the many projects submitted, the one by Royal Architect Charles van der Straeten (1771-1834) was selected in 1820.
The mound was built from 1824 to 1826 (in the literature, dates range, errouneously, from 1821 to 1827), using, basket by basket, earth from the nearby fields laying to the South of the mound, all the way to La Haie-Sainte.
The 4.5m high lion statue was designed by Jan Lodewijk Van Geel (1787-1852), and manufactured by the Cockerill Ironworks, Seraing (Liège), "using cannons captured from the enemy". In fact, it consists of nine pieces of cast iron, assembled on the spot and completed on Saturday, October 28, 1826.

The roaring lion faces south, towards France.

In November 1832, French soldiers targeted and damaged the lion with shots as they made their way to besiege Antwerp (which was still held by Willem I, despite Belgium independence from the Netherlands on October 4, 1830).

In 2015, Belgium proposed a €2 commemorative coin [each country having adopted the EUR as its currency is entitled to propose yearly to the other member States two motifs to be struck as €2-coin] to commemorate the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo, a major turning point in European History. But it was vetoed by the French President Francois Hollande. ‘'The wounds of the defeat have not healed yet", he argued.