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.
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.
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 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.
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.