
The Count of Hainaut was the ruler of the county of Hainaut, a historical region in the Low Countries. In English-language historical sources, the title is often given the archaic spelling Hainault.

The County of Hainaut, was a territorial lordship within the medieval Holy Roman Empire, straddling what is now the border of Belgium and France. Its most important towns included Mons, now in Belgium, and Valenciennes, now in France.

Charles II of Lalaing was Count of Lalaing, Lord of Escornaix and stadtholder of the County of Hainaut.

The Chronicles of Hainaut is an illuminated manuscript in three volumes, tracing the history of the county of Hainaut up to the end of the 14th century. Its text was produced around 1446-1450 by Jean Wauquelin as a French translation of Annales historiae illustrium principum Hannoniæ, a three-volume Latin work produced by Jacques de Guise around 1390-1396. It was made for Philip the Good of Burgundy and is now in the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique in Brussels.

French Hainaut is one of two areas in France that form the département du Nord, its eastern part. It corresponds roughly with the Arrondissement of Avesnes-sur-Helpe (east), Arrondissement of Cambrai (south-west) and Arrondissement of Valenciennes (north-west).

Antoine I de Lalaing (1480–1540), 1st count of Hoogstraten and of Culemborg, was a Hainautese nobleman who held various offices in the court of the Dukes of Burgundy.

Walter Manny,, 1st Baron Manny, KG, soldier of fortune and founder of the Charterhouse, was from Masny in Hainault, from whose counts he claimed descent. He was a patron and friend of Froissart, in whose chronicles his exploits have a conspicuous and probably an exaggerated place.

Hedwig of France, also called Avoise, Hadevide or Haltude, was Countess of Mons. She was the daughter of Hugh Capet, the first King of France, and his wife, Queen Adelaide of Aquitaine.

Philip de Lalaing was 3rd Count of Lalaing and Lord of Escornaix and Wavrin.

Philippa of Hainault was Queen of England as the wife and political adviser of King Edward III. She acted as regent in 1346, when her husband was away for the Hundred Years' War.

Saint Ghislain was a confessor and anchorite in Belgium. He died at the town named after him, Saint-Ghislain (Ursidongus).

The War of the Flemish Succession was a series of feudal conflicts in the mid-thirteenth century between the children of Margaret II, Countess of Flanders. They concerned the succession to the countship of two counties, one a fief of the King of France (Flanders) and one a fief of the King of Germany (Hainault).