The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands consists of twelve provinces and three overseas special municipalities. European Netherlands has land borders with Germany to the east and with Belgium to the south, and a coastline to the north and west. It shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany, and Belgium in the North Sea. The official language is Dutch, with West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland. Dutch, English, and Papiamento are official languages in the Caribbean territories. People from the Netherlands are referred to as Dutch.
The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands consists of twelve provinces and three overseas special municipalities. European Netherlands has land borders with Germany to the east and with Belgium to the south, and a coastline to the north and west. It shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany, and Belgium in the North Sea. The official language is Dutch, with West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland. Dutch, English, and Papiamento are official languages in the Caribbean territories. People from the Netherlands are referred to as Dutch.
Netherlands literally means "lower countries", in reference to its low elevation and flat topography, 26% of which is below sea level. Most of the areas below sea level, known as polders, are the result of land reclamation that began in the 14th century. The Dutch Republic experienced major political, economic, and cultural development; this period is commonly known as the Dutch Golden Age. During this time, its trading companies, the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company, established multiple colonies and trading posts. While neutral in the First World War, the Netherlands was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany in 1940 during the Second World War, which lasted until the end of the war in 1945.
With a population of over 18 million people, all living within a total area of 41,850 km2 (16,160 sq mi)—of which the land area is 33,500 km2 (12,900 sq mi)—the Netherlands is the 15th most densely populated country, with a density of 433 people per square kilometre (1,120 people/sq mi). Nevertheless, it is the world's second largest exporter of food and agricultural products by value, owing to its fertile soil, mild climate, intensive agriculture, and inventiveness. The four largest cities are Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. Amsterdam is most populous city and the nominal capital, though the primary national political institutions are in The Hague.
The Netherlands has been a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a unitary structure since 1848. The country has a tradition of pillarisation (separation of citizens into groups by religion and political beliefs) and a long record of social tolerance, having legalised prostitution and euthanasia, along with maintaining a liberal drug policy. The Netherlands allowed women's suffrage in 1919 and was the first country to legalise same-sex marriage in 2001. A developed country, its mixed-market advanced economy is the 18th-largest in the world and has the 11th-highest per capita income globally. The Hague holds the seat of the States General, cabinet, and Supreme Court. The Port of Rotterdam is the busiest in Europe. Schiphol is the busiest airport in the Netherlands and the fourth busiest in Europe. The Netherlands is a founding member of the European Union, eurozone, G10, NATO, OECD, and World Trade Organization, as well as a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. It hosts intergovernmental organisations and international courts, many of which are in The Hague.
Etymology
Netherlands and the Low Countries
In most Romance languages, the term "Low Countries" is officially used as the name for the Netherlands. The countries that constitute the region called the Low Countries (Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg) all have similar toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nedre, Nether, Lage(r) or Low(er) (in Germanic languages) and Bas or Inferior (in Romance languages) are in use in low-lying places all over Europe. The Romans made a distinction between the Roman provinces of downstream Germania Inferior (nowadays part of Belgium and the Netherlands) and upstream Germania Superior. Thus, in the case of the Low Countries and the Netherlands, the geographical location of this lower region is more or less downstream and near the sea, compared to that of the upper region of Germania Superior. The designation 'low' returned in the 10th-century Duchy of Lower Lorraine, which covered much of the Low Countries.
The Dukes of Burgundy used the term les pays de par deçà ("the lands over here") for the Low Countries. Under Habsburg rule, this became pays d'embas ("lands down here"). This was translated as Neder-landen in contemporary Dutch official documents. From a regional point of view, Niderlant was also the area between the Meuse and the lower Rhine in the late Middle Ages. From the mid-16th century, the "Low Countries" and the "Netherlands" lost their original deictic meaning.
Holland
The term Holland has frequently been used informally to refer to the whole of the modern country of the Netherlands in various languages, including Dutch and English. In some languages, Holland is used as the formal name for the Netherlands. However, Holland is a region within the Netherlands that consists of the two provinces of North and South Holland. Formerly these were a single province, and earlier the County of Holland, which also included parts of present-day Utrecht province. The emphasis on Holland during the formation of the Dutch Republic, the Eighty Years' War, and the Anglo-Dutch wars in the 17th and 18th centuries made Holland a pars pro toto for the entire country.
Many Dutch people object to the country being referred to as Holland instead of the Netherlands, on much the same grounds as many Welsh or Scottish people object to the United Kingdom being referred to as England. In particular, those from regions other than Holland find it undesirable or misrepresentative to use the term Holland for the whole country, as the Holland region only comprises two of the twelve provinces, and 38% of Dutch citizens. As of 2019, the Dutch government officially has preferred the Netherlands over Holland when talking about the country.
Often Holland or Hollanders are used by the Flemish to refer to the Dutch in the Netherlands. The terms are used in a derogatory fashion by the Dutch living south of the great rivers (a natural cultural, social, and religious boundary formed by the rivers Rhine and Meuse) to refer to the Dutch in the north. In the southern province of Limburg, the term is used for the Dutch from the other 11 provinces.
Dutch
Dutch is used in English as the adjective for the Netherlands, as well as the demonym. The origins of the word go back to proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz (Latinised into Theodiscus), meaning "popular" or "of the people", the origin of Old Dutch *thiudisc and Old English þeodisc, meaning "(of) the common (Germanic) people". At first, the English language used Dutch to refer to any or all speakers of West Germanic languages. The term gradually came to be used more narrowly to refer to the West Germanic people with whom the English had the most contact.
History
Prehistory (before 800 BC)
The oldest human (Neanderthal) traces in the Netherlands, believed to be about 250,000 years old, were found near Maastricht. At the end of the Ice Age, the nomadic late Upper Palaeolithic Hamburg culture (13,000–10,000 BC) hunted reindeer in the area, using spears. The later Ahrensburg culture (11,200–9,500 BC) used bow and arrow. From Mesolithic Maglemosian-like tribes (c. 8000 BC), the world's oldest canoe was found in Drenthe.
Indigenous late Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from the Swifterbant culture (c. 5600 BC), related to the southern Scandinavian Ertebølle culture, were strongly linked to rivers and open water. Between 4800 and 4500 BC, the Swifterbant people started to adopt from the neighbouring Linear Pottery culture the practice of animal husbandry, and between 4300 and 4000 BC agriculture. The Funnelbeaker culture (4300–2800 BC) erected the dolmens, large stone grave monuments found in Drenthe. There was a quick transition from the Funnelbeaker farming culture to the pan-European pastoralist Corded Ware culture (c. 2950 BC). In the southwest, the Seine–Oise–Marne culture—related to the Vlaardingen culture (c. 2600 BC)—survived well into the Neolithic period, until it too was succeeded by the Corded Ware culture.
The subsequent Bell Beaker culture (2700–2100 BC) introduced metalwork in copper, gold and later bronze and opened new international trade routes, reflected in copper artefacts. Finds of rare bronze objects suggest that Drenthe was a trading centre in the Bronze Age (2000–800 BC). The Bell Beaker culture developed locally into the Barbed-Wire Beaker culture (2100–1800 BC) and later the Elp culture (1800–800 BC), a Middle Bronze Age culture marked by earthenware pottery. The southern region became dominated by the related Hilversum culture (1800–800 BC).
Celts, Germanic tribes and Romans (800 BC–410 AD)
From 800 BC onwards, the Iron Age Celtic Hallstatt culture became influential. Iron ore brought a measure of prosperity and was available throughout the country. Smiths travelled from settlement to settlement with bronze and iron, fabricating tools on demand. The King's grave of Oss (700 BC) was found in a burial mound, the largest of its kind in Western Europe.
The deteriorating climate in Scandinavia from 850 BC and 650 BC might have triggered the migration of Germanic tribes from the north. By the time this migration was complete, around 250 BC, a few general cultural and linguistic groups had emerged. The North Sea Germanic Ingaevones inhabited the northern part of the Low Countries. They would later develop into the Frisii and the early Saxons. The Weser–Rhine Germanic (or Istvaeones) extended along the middle Rhine and Weser and inhabited the Low Countries south of the great rivers. These tribes would eventually develop into the Salian Franks. The Celtic La Tène culture (c. 450 BC to the Roman conquest) expanded over a wide range, including the southern area of the Low Countries. Some scholars speculate that even a third ethnic identity and language, neither Germanic nor Celtic, survived in the Netherlands until the Roman period, the Nordwestblock culture.
The first author to describe the coast of Holland and Flanders was the geographer Pytheas, who notes in c. 325 BC that in these regions, "more people died in the struggle against water than in the struggle against men." During the Gallic Wars, the area south and west of the Rhine was conquered by Roman forces under Julius Caesar from 57 BC to 53 BC. Caesar describes two main Celtic tribes living in what is now the southern Netherlands: the Menapii and the Eburones. Under Augustus, the Roman Empire conquered the entirety of the modern day Netherlands, incorporating it into the province of Germania Antiqua in 7 BC, and was repelled back across the Rhine after the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in AD 9; the Rhine became fixed as Rome's permanent northern frontier about AD 12. Notable towns at Nijmegen and Voorburg arose along the Limes Germanicus. In the first part of Gallia Belgica, the area south of the Limes became part of Germania Inferior. The area to the north of the Rhine, inhabited by the Frisii, remained outside Roman rule, while the Germanic border tribes of the Batavi and Cananefates served in the Roman cavalry. The Batavi revolted in 69 and were defeated. The Batavi later merged with other tribes into the confederation of the Salian Franks, whose identity emerged in the early 3rd century. Salian Franks appear in Roman texts as both allies and enemies. They were forced by the confederation of the Saxons from the east to move over the Rhine into Roman territory in the 4th century. From their base in West Flanders and the southwest Netherlands, they were raiding the English Channel. Roman forces pacified the region but did not expel the Franks, who continued to be feared at least until the time of Julian the Apostate (358) when Salian Franks were allowed to settle as foederati in Texandria.
Early Middle Ages (411–1000)
After the Roman government in the area collapsed around 406, the Franks expanded their territories into numerous kingdoms. By the 490s, Clovis I had conquered and united all these territories in the southern Netherlands in one Frankish kingdom and from there continued his conquests into Gaul. During this expansion, Franks migrating to the south (modern territory of France and Walloon part of Belgium) eventually adopted the Vulgar Latin of the local population. A widening cultural divide grew with the Franks remaining in their original homeland in the north (i.e. the southern Netherlands and Flanders), who kept on speaking Old Frankish, which by the 9th century had evolved into Old Low Franconian or Old Dutch. A Dutch-French language boundary hence came into existence.
To the north of the Franks, climatic conditions improved, and during the Migration Period the Angles, Jutes, and Frisii settled the coast. Many moved on to England and came to be known as Anglo-Saxons, but those who stayed would be referred to as Frisians and their language as Frisian. Frisian was spoken along the entire southern North Sea coast. By the 7th century, a Frisian Kingdom (650–734) under King Aldegisel and King Redbad emerged with Traiectum (Utrecht) as its centre of power, while Dorestad was a flourishing trading place. Between 600 and 719, the strategic cities and commercial hubs of the Rhine delta were fiercely contested by the Frisian Kingdom and the expanding Frankish Empire. In 734, at the Battle of the Boarn, the Frisians were defeated after a series of wars. With the approval of the Franks, the Anglo-Saxon missionary Willibrord converted the Frisian people to Christianity and established the Archdiocese of Utrecht. However, his successor Boniface was murdered by the Frisians in 754.
The Frankish Carolingian Empire controlled much of Western Europe. In 843, it was divided into three parts—East, Middle, and West Francia. Most of present-day Netherlands became part of Middle Francia, which was a weak kingdom and subject to numerous partitions and annexation attempts by its stronger neighbours. It comprised territories from Frisia in the north to the Kingdom of Italy in the south. Around 850, Lothair I of Middle Francia acknowledged the Viking Rorik of Dorestad as ruler of most of Frisia. When Middle Francia was partitioned in 855, the lands north of the Alps passed to Lothair II and subsequently were named Lotharingia. After he died in 869, Lotharingia was partitioned, into Upper and Lower Lotharingia, the latter comprising the Low Countries that became part of East Francia in 870. Around 879, another Viking expedition led by Godfrid, Duke of Frisia, raided the Frisian lands. Resistance to the Vikings, if any, came from local nobles who gained in stature as a result, and that laid the basis for the disintegration of Lower Lotharingia into semi-independent states. One of these local nobles was Gerolf of Holland, who assumed lordship in Frisia, and Viking rule came to an end.