Luxembourg

The north of Luxembourg has hills and forests.

Rivers wind through deep valleys. In the south there are farms and vineyards. Grapes grow on the sunny slopes by the Moselle River.

Luxembourg has two main regions. The Éislek, or Oesling, in the north covers about a third of the country. It is part of the Ardennes, a high, green plateau cut by steep wooded valleys. The Haute-Sûre reservoir there is the largest lake in the country, and the highest point, 560 meters, is at Wilwerdange.

The Guttland, or "good land," covers the rest. The Moselle valley in the east is covered with vineyards, and the Mullerthal has a great beech forest and rocky sandstone hills. In the far south, the Land of the Red Rocks, or Minett, was shaped by iron-ore mining. Forests cover about 35 percent of the whole country.

The government portal divides the 2,586 km² into the Éislek (Oesling), 828 km² or one third of the territory, and the Guttland, 1,758 km² or 68 percent. The Éislek is a corner of the Ardennes: Britannica describes a plateau averaging about 450 m, built of schists and sandstones and cut by deep valleys of rivers draining to the Sûre. Its highest point, 560 m, is at Wilwerdange, and the Haute-Sûre reservoir is the country's largest lake. The Guttland averages about 245 m; its sandstone Mullerthal holds a great beech forest, and the Moselle valley's chalk and clay slopes, covered in vineyards, are sunny enough to be called the "Little Riviera." In the southwest, the Minett takes its name from minette, the name for iron ore in Lorraine, and some former industrial land has been turned into nature reserves.

Forest covers 92,150 hectares, about 35 percent of the land, 64 percent of it hardwoods; beech is the most common tree. Britannica gives mean temperatures in the capital of about 0.7 °C in January and 17 °C in July, with about 1,000 mm of precipitation in the southwest and 685 mm in the southeast.

Deer, wild boar and foxes live in Luxembourg's forests.

Woodpeckers, owls, gray herons and kingfishers live in Luxembourg too. Bats find shelter in old mine tunnels.

Luxembourg's forests of beech, oak, maple and ash are home to deer, wild boar and foxes, along with many birds, insects and other small animals. Old trees and dead wood give fungi, lichens and insects places to live.

About 29 percent of the country is protected. Woodpeckers, owls, gray herons, kingfishers and sedge warblers live in these places. In the south, old open-pit iron mines have become safe homes for rare plants and animals, and the abandoned iron ore tunnels are now shelters for many kinds of bats.

The government portal lists deer, boar and foxes among the mammals of Luxembourg's forests, where dead wood and old trees support fungi, lichens and insects. More than 29 percent of the territory is protected: 67 Natura 2000 sites cover about 72,000 hectares, 49 of them special areas of conservation and 18 special protection areas for birds, and a further 77 national nature reserves cover about 6 percent of the land.

These sites hold 109 of the roughly 1,200 species and habitats that the European Union classes as worthy of protection. Recorded species include several woodpeckers and owls, the gray heron, the kingfisher and the sedge warbler, Bechstein's bat, the southern damselfly, the marsh fritillary butterfly and the river mussel. In the Minett, former open-pit iron mines now give rare plants and animals a secure habitat and old ore tunnels shelter many bat species. Protection also crosses borders: a German-Luxembourgish project monitors dragonflies in the Our valley.

About 691,000 people live in Luxembourg.

People from about 180 countries live there. Many children learn several languages at school. Buses, trains and trams are free for everyone.

At the start of 2026, 690,959 people lived in Luxembourg, and almost half of them were citizens of other countries, from about 180 nations. The biggest groups of foreign citizens were Portuguese, French and Italian.

Luxembourgish is the national language, and French and German are used by the government too. A 2018 study found that 98 percent of people speak French, 80 percent English, 78 percent German and 77 percent Luxembourgish. Since 29 February 2020, buses, trains and trams have been free for everyone. Kniddelen, flour dumplings, are traditionally eaten in the colder seasons, and fried potato patties called Gromperekichelcher are eaten at festivals and fairs.

STATEC counted 690,959 residents on 1 January 2026, of whom 322,050 (46.6 percent) were foreign nationals, from some 180 nationalities. Portuguese nationals were the largest group at 12.8 percent of the population, followed by the French (7.1) and Italians (3.7). Life expectancy at birth was 85.2 years for women and 81.1 for men, and the fertility rate, 1.23 children per woman in 2025, had never been so low.

Luxembourgish, a Moselle-Franconian form of German enriched with French words, is the national language; under the Languages Law of 1984, French, German or Luxembourgish may be used in administrative and judicial matters, and laws are written in French. A 2018 Ministry of Education study found that 98 percent of residents speak French, 80 percent English, 78 percent German and 77 percent Luxembourgish, and pupils learn at least three foreign languages at school. Britannica notes that most native citizens are Roman Catholic, with small numbers of Protestants, Jews and Muslims. Public transport has been free nationwide since 29 February 2020, except first class. Kniddelen (flour dumplings with bacon) and Gromperekichelcher (fried potato patties with apple sauce) recall the country's farming past.