The Waterloo battlefield is located in present-day Belgium. The battle was fought on 18 June 1815 near the village of Waterloo, roughly 15 kilometres south of Brussels, in what is now the Belgian municipalities of Braine-l’Alleud and Lasne.
At the time of the battle, Belgium did not yet exist as an independent country. The area formed part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, created after Napoleon’s defeat in 1814. Belgium became an independent kingdom in 1830, fifteen years after Waterloo.
Another frequent source of confusion is that the battle’s exact fighting ground was not in the village centre of Waterloo. Wellington’s allied army occupied a ridge near Mont-Saint-Jean, while the battlefield extended across several nearby farms and settlements, including Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte and Papelotte. The site is now marked by museums, memorials and the Lion’s Mound.