Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant

Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant (Elisabeth Theresia Maria Helena; Élisabeth Thérèse Marie Hélène; born 25 October 2001), is the heiress apparent to the Belgian throne.

The first child of the then Duke and Duchess of Brabant, Philippe (now King) and Mathilde, Elisabeth was delivered by Caesarean section at 21:58 CET on 25 October 2001 at the Erasmus Hospital, the teaching hospital of the Université libre de Bruxelles in Anderlecht, Brussels.

She was baptized on 9 December 2001 in the chapel of Ciergnon Castle in the Belgian Ardennes, by the late Cardinal Danneels, Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels.

Her godparents are Archduke Amedeo of Austria-Este (paternal cousin), and Countess Hélène d'Udekem d'Acoz (maternal aunt).

Princess Elisabeth studied at St John Berchmans College, Brussels, from 2004 until 2018.

This marked a significant change in royal tradition, being the first time that a future Belgian monarch's education has begun in Dutch.

Elisabeth's first public appearance was on 21 July 2006, when she accompanied her parents during the Te Deum for National Day celebrations at the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula.

The following year, on 13 June 2007, Princess Elisabeth and her parents attended the opening of a new Technopolis youth interactive at Mechelen.

In 2009, she gave her name to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Station, a Belgian scientific polar research station.

In September 2011, the nine-year-old princess gave her first public speech (in Dutch) at the opening of Princess Elisabeth Children's Hospital, part of Ghent University Hospital.

The eldest child of King Philippe and Queen Mathilde, she was elevated to the dukedom after her grandfather King Albert II abdicated in favour of her father on 21 July 2013.

On 21 July 2013, once Elisabeth's father had sworn the oath of office as King of the Belgians (his father, King Albert II, having abdicated shortly before), she became heir apparent to the throne, taking the title of Duchess of Brabant.

Should she ascend to the throne as expected, Elisabeth will become Belgium's first female monarch.

She gave her first official self-written speech in 2014 during commemorations of the centenary of the outbreak of World War I at Nieuwpoort.

Princess Elisabeth read the prayer intentions at her great-aunt Queen Fabiola's funeral in December 2014.

Princess Elisabeth was honoured to be godmother of the patrol vessel Pollux P902 on 6 May 2015 in Zeebrugge.

In 2018, she continued her secondary education at UWC Atlantic College in Wales under the name "Elisabeth de Brabant", receiving her International Baccalaureate Diploma in May 2020.

She also attended the Yale Young Global Scholars Program at Yale University.

In April 2019, Elisabeth joined her father King Philippe on a visit to meet Brussels firefighters.

She attended the funeral of Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg in May 2019.

In June 2019, the Duchess of Brabant and her mother traveled to Kenya for the United Nations Children's Fund, where they visited the Kakuma refugee camp.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Princess Elisabeth held conversations over the phone with elderly people in residential care centers in order to give them encouragement and support.

On 21 July 2021, she joined fellow students of the Royal Military Academy Belgium to parade during Belgian National Day.

On 12 May 2022, Princess Elisabeth accompanied her aunt Princess Astrid on a visit to St Hilda's College, Oxford.

There, she and her aunt met St Hilda's Principal Professor Dame Sarah Springman and the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University Professor Dame Louise Richardson.

On 17 June 2022, together with her mother the Queen, she was among the royal guests invited to the celebrations of the 18th birthday of Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway.

She carried her two first solo official engagements in the following week by christening the Belgian oceanographic research vessel RV Belgica and inaugurating KU Leuven's Princess Elisabeth Additive Manufacturing Lab.

In December 2022, Princess Elisabeth and her brother Prince Emmanuel participated in the Warmathon in Brussels.

In March 2023, Elisabeth and her mother Queen Mathilde traveled to Egypt, where they visited archaeological sites.

On 5 May 2023, Elisabeth accompanied her father to a reception at Buckingham Palace the evening before the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla of the United Kingdom.

In June 2023, she and her father attended the wedding of Crown Prince Hussein of Jordan and Rajwa Al Saif.

Elisabeth volunteers to help children with learning difficulties, the elderly, the homeless and disabled people.

Ten years prior to Elisabeth's birth, a new act of succession was put into effect which introduced absolute primogeniture, meaning that she comes first in the line of succession because she is the eldest child.

In May 2020, the Belgian Royal Court announced that Elisabeth would undertake military training.

On 31 August 2020, Elisabeth entered the Royal Military Academy in Brussels, studying social and military sciences.

Among the 160th promotion Elisabeth received her blue beret in September 2022, having completed her one-year military training on 9 July 2021.

For the next two years, she attended the Royal Military Academy's annual three-week summer camps and other practical and theoretical military classes.

She swore the officers' oath on 26 September 2023 being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Belgian Army.

Elisabeth went on to read history and politics at Lincoln College, Oxford, in October 2021 and rowed for Lincoln College Boat Club in Torpids, an Oxford rowing race, in February 2023 under the name "Elisabeth de Saxe-Cobourg".

Elisabeth speaks Dutch, French, German and English, and has also taken classes in Mandarin Chinese.