The Coudenberg or Koudenberg (listen(help·info); Dutch for cold hill) is a small hill in central Brussels (Belgium) where the Palace of Coudenberg was built. For nearly 700 years, the Castle and then Palace of Coudenberg was the seat of government of the counts, dukes, archdukes, kings, emperors and governors, who from the 11th century until its destruction in 1731, exerted their sovereignty over the area of the Duchy of Brabant, now in the southern Netherlands and northern Belgium. After several years of recent excavations, the archaeological vestiges of the palace and its foundations are open to the public.

Archaeological remains and partial restoration

The remains of the ancient palace and adjacent building have been extensively excavated below present ground level, and preserved with a partial concrete cover. The remains can be visited via the BELvue Museum, and provide an excellent presentation of this historical site. The main buildings of the palace stood on roughly the same location as the present-day museum and Rue Royale/Koningstraat which faces it. The adjacent Chapel and Aula Magna buildings stood on sites which are now respectively part of the Centre for Fine Arts (BOZAR/PSK centre) and the north corner of the Royal Square beside the Musical Instruments Museum (MIM). The former Rue Isabelle/Isabellastraat ran beside these buildings; it had a significant slope, but the present surface of Rue Royale which parallels it is flat, as the whole area was levelled in the 18th century. The lower rooms of these buildings partially survived the fire, and are exposed in the archaeological site.

The preserved remains presently visitable comprise:

• the cellars of the main palace
• the rooms underlying the main banqueting hall in the Aula Magna
• the warehouse space that underlay the chapel

On the other side of Rue Isabelle, all along its length lay the house of the influential Counts of Hoogstraeten, currently (2008) at an advanced stage of excavation, with a view to later opening to visitors, alongside the existing remains.

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