About Luxembourg

Luxembourg is easy to overlook on a map. It sits in the middle of Western Europe, bordered by France, Belgium, and Germany, and covers about 1,000 square miles — roughly the size of Rhode Island. You could drive across it in an hour.

Don't let the size fool you.

Luxembourg has been continuously inhabited since the Romans, fought over by every major European power for centuries, and occupied twice in living memory — by Germany in both World War I and World War II. It has been a county, a duchy, a grand duchy, a pawn in the hands of Habsburgs and Bonapartes and Prussians, and through all of it has somehow remained, stubbornly, itself.

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg as it exists today dates to 1839, when the Treaty of London established its borders and its independence once and for all. Since then it has become one of the wealthiest countries in the world per capita, a founding member of the European Union, and home to a remarkably cosmopolitan population — nearly half of Luxembourg's residents today were born outside the country, drawn by its financial sector, its institutions, and its position at the heart of Europe.

And yet Luxembourg remains distinctly Luxembourg. It has its own language — Lëtzebuergesch, spoken by no one else on earth — its own heraldic lion, its own national monuments, its own food, its own wines, its own particular stubbornness about knowing who it is regardless of what's happening next door.

Luxembourgers began emigrating to the United States in significant numbers in the mid-19th century, settling primarily in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois. They brought their language, their Catholicism, their agricultural traditions, and that characteristic stubbornness with them. Many of their descendants are still in the Upper Midwest, now three, four, and five generations removed from the country their families came from.

This shop exists for them — and for anyone else who has ever looked at that small country on the map and felt, for whatever reason, that it was theirs.