Netherlands

The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It ranks as the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands comprises 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 in the Caribbean territories. People from the Netherlands are referred to as Dutch.

Overview§

The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It ranks as the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands comprises 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 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 started in the 14th century. In the Republican period, the Dutch Republic experienced leading political, economic, and cultural development; this period is commonly known as the Dutch Golden Age. Its trading companies, the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company, established multiple colonies and trading posts during this time. 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 26th most densely populated country, with a density of 541 people per square kilometre (1,400 people/sq mi). Nevertheless, it is the world's second largest exporter of food and agricultural products by value, because of its fertile soil, mild climate, intensive agriculture, and inventiveness. The four largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. Amsterdam is the country's most populous city and the nominal capital, though the primary national political institutions are in The Hague. The Netherlands has since been a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with an 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 eighteenth-largest in the world, and has the eleventh-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, along with 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§

The countries that comprise the region called the Low Countries (Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg) all have comparatively the same 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. Accordingly, 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-sixteenth century, the "Low Countries" and the "Netherlands" lost their original deictic meaning. In most Romance languages, the term "Low Countries" is officially used as the name for the Netherlands.

Holland§

The term Holland has frequently been used informally to refer to the whole of the modern country of the Netherlands in several languages, including Dutch and English. Holland is used as the formal name for the Netherlands in some languages. Though, Holland is a region within the Netherlands that comprises 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. 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 around the country. Often Holland or Hollanders is used by the Flemish to refer to the Dutch in the Netherlands, and 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. The use of the term in this context by the southern Dutch is in a derogatory fashion. 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, along with 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 the English had the most contact with.

Prehistory (before 800 BC)§

The oldest human (Neanderthal) traces in the Netherlands, believed to be around 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, sizeable stone grave monuments found in Drenthe. There was a quick transition from the Funnelbeaker farming culture to the pan-European Corded Ware pastoralist 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, replacing the Hilversum culture. 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. Around 250 BC, a few general cultural and linguistic groups had emerged by the time this migration was complete. 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 have speculated 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 noted 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 around AD 12. Notable towns would arise along the Limes Germanicus: Nijmegen and Voorburg. In the first part of Gallia Belgica, the area south of the Limes became part of the Roman province 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 rose against the Romans in the Batavian rebellion of AD 69 and were defeated. The Batavi later merged with other tribes into the confederation of the Salian Franks, whose identity emerged in the first half of the third 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 fourth century. From their new 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 in around the year 406, the Franks expanded their territories into many kingdoms. 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 by the 490s. 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 ninth 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 Saxons, the closely related 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. 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 by the seventh century. 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. At the Battle of the Boarn, the Frisians were defeated after a series of wars in 734. With the approval of the Franks, the Anglo-Saxon missionary Willibrord converted the Frisian people to Christianity and established the Archdiocese of Utrecht. Though, his successor Boniface was murdered by the Frisians in 754. The Frankish Carolingian Empire controlled much of Western Europe. It was divided into three parts—East, Middle, and West Francia in 843. Most of present-day Netherlands became part of Middle Francia, which was a weak kingdom and subject to many 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 the kingdom of Middle Francia was partitioned in 855, the lands north of the Alps passed to Lothair II and later 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.

High Middle Ages (1000–1384)§

The Holy Roman Empire ruled much of the Low Countries in the 10th and 11th century but was not able to maintain political unity. Powerful local nobles turned their cities, counties and duchies into private kingdoms that felt little sense of obligation to the emperor. Holland, Hainaut, Flanders, Gelre, Brabant, and Utrecht were in a state of almost continual war or paradoxically formed personal unions. As Frankish settlement progressed from Flanders and Brabant, the area quickly became Old Low Franconian (or Old Dutch). Around 1000 AD, agrarian conditions started to improve, which led to increase in population, reclamation of wasteland by farmers, and steady growth of trade and industry. Towns grew around monasteries and castles, and a mercantile middle class started to develop in these urban areas, especially in Flanders, and later Brabant. Wealthy cities started to buy certain privileges for themselves from the sovereign. Around 1100 AD, farmers from Flanders and Utrecht started draining and cultivating uninhabited swampy land in the western Netherlands, making the emergence of the County of Holland as the centre of power possible. The title of Count of Holland was fought over in the Hook and Cod Wars between 1350 and 1490. The Cod faction consisted of the more progressive cities, while the Hook faction consisted of the conservative noblemen. These noblemen invited Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy to conquer Holland.

Burgundian, Habsburg and Spanish Habsburg Netherlands (1384–1581)§

Most of the Imperial and French fiefs in what is now the Netherlands and Belgium were united in a personal union by Philip the Good in 1433. The House of Valois-Burgundy and their Habsburg heirs would rule the Low Countries from 1384 to 1581. The new rulers defended Dutch trading interests. The fleets of the County of Holland defeated the fleets of the Hanseatic League several times. Amsterdam grew and in the 15th century became the primary trading port in Europe for grain from the Baltic region. Amsterdam distributed grain to the leading cities of Belgium, Northern France and England. This trade was vital because Holland could no longer make enough grain to feed itself. Land drainage had caused the peat of the former wetlands to reduce to a level that was too low for drainage to be maintained. Under Habsburg Charles V, all fiefs in the current Netherlands region were united into the Seventeen Provinces, which included most of present-day Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of France and Germany. Under Phillip II, the Eighty Years' War between the Provinces and their Spanish ruler started in 1568. The level of ferocity exhibited by both sides can be gleaned from a Dutch chronicler's report:

On more than one occasion men were seen hanging their own brothers, who had been taken prisoners in the enemy's ranks... A Spaniard had ceased to be human in their eyes. On one occasion, a surgeon at Veer cut the heart from a Spanish prisoner, nailed it on a vessel's prow, and invited the townsmen to come and fasten their teeth in it, which many did with savage satisfaction. The Duke of Alba attempted to suppress the Protestant movement in the Netherlands. Netherlanders were "burned, strangled, beheaded, or buried alive" by his "Blood Council" and Spanish soldiers. Bodies were displayed along roads to terrorise the population into submission. Alba boasted of having executed 18,600; this figure does not include those who perished by war and famine. The first great siege was Alba's effort to capture Haarlem and thereby cut Holland in half. It dragged on from December 1572 to the next summer, when Haarlemers finally surrendered on 13 July upon the promise that the city would be spared from being sacked. It was a stipulation Don Fadrique was unable to honour, when his soldiers mutinied, angered over pay owed and the miserable conditions of the campaign. On 4 November 1576, Spanish tercios seized Antwerp and subjected it to the worst pillage in the Netherlands' history. The citizens resisted but were overcome; seven thousand were killed and a thousand buildings were torched.

After the sack of Antwerp, delegates from Catholic Brabant, Protestant Holland and Zeeland agreed to join Utrecht and William the Silent in driving out Spanish troops and forming a new government for the Netherlands. Don Juan of Austria, the new Spanish governor, was forced to concede initially, but within months returned to active hostilities. The Dutch looked for help from the Protestant Elizabeth I of England, but she initially stood by her commitments to the Spanish in the Treaty of Bristol of 1574. When the next sizeable-scale battle took place at Gembloux in 1578, the Spanish forces won easily. In light of the defeat at Gembloux, the southern states of the Seventeen Provinces distanced themselves from the rebels in the north with the 1579 Union of Arras. Opposing them, the northern half of the Seventeen Provinces forged the Union of Utrecht in which they committed to support each other against the Spanish. The Union of Utrecht is seen as the foundation of the modern Netherlands. Spanish troops sacked Maastricht in 1579, killing over 10,000 civilians. In 1581, the northern provinces adopted the Act of Abjuration, the declaration of independence in which the provinces officially deposed Philip II. Against the rebels Philip could draw on the resources of the Spanish Empire. Elizabeth I sympathised with the Dutch struggle and sent an army of 7,600 soldiers to aid them. English forces faced the Spanish in the Netherlands under the Duke of Parma in a series of largely indecisive actions that tied down substantial numbers of Spanish troops and bought time for the Dutch to reorganise their defences. The war continued until 1648, when Spain under King Philip IV recognised the independence of the seven north-western provinces in the Peace of Münster. Parts of the southern provinces became de facto colonies of the new republican-mercantile empire.

Dutch Republic (1581–1795)§

After the declaration of independence, the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Groningen, Friesland, Utrecht, Overijssel, and Gelderland entered into a confederation. All these duchies, lordships and counties enjoyed a substantial degree of autonomy and were governed by their own administrative bodies known as the States-Provincial. The confederal government, known as the States General, was headquartered in The Hague and comprised representatives from each of the seven provinces. The sparsely populated region of Drenthe was part of the republic, albeit not considered a province in its own right. Further, during the Eighty Years' War, the Republic came to occupy several Generality Lands in Flanders, Brabant and Limburg. These areas were mainly inhabited by Roman Catholics and lacked a distinct governmental structure of their own. They were used as a buffer zone between the Republic and the Spanish-controlled Southern Netherlands.

During the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, the Dutch Empire grew to become one of the leading seafaring and economic powers. Dutch science, military and art (especially painting) were among the most acclaimed in the world. By 1650, the Dutch owned 16,000 merchant ships. The Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company established colonies and trading posts all over the world. The Dutch settlement in North America started with the founding of New Amsterdam in 1614. The Dutch settled the Cape Colony in 1652 in South Africa. Dutch colonies in South America were established along the many rivers in the fertile Guyana plains, among them Colony of Surinam (now Suriname). The Dutch established a presence in India, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), Formosa (now Taiwan), and the only western trading post in Japan, Dejima in Asia. During the period of Proto-industrialisation, the empire gained 50% of textiles and 80% of silks import from the India's Mughal Empire.

Many economic historians regard the Netherlands as the first thoroughly capitalist country. It had the wealthiest trading city in Amsterdam, and the first full-time stock exchange in early modern Europe. The inventiveness of the traders led to insurance and retirement funds along with phenomena such as the boom-bust cycle, the world's first asset-inflation bubble, the tulip mania of 1636–1637, and the world's first bear raider, Isaac le Maire. In 1672 – known in Dutch history as the Rampjaar (Disaster Year) – the Dutch Republic was attacked by France, England and two German bishoprics simultaneously, in what would become known as the Franco-Dutch War. At sea, it could successfully prevent the English and French navies from blockading the western shores. On land the Republic was almost overrun by the advancing French and German armies from the east, but the Dutch managed to turn the tide by inundating parts of Holland.

From 1672 to 1712, the Republic, led by William III of Orange and Anthonie Heinsius would regularly clash with France in what some historians have come to call the Forty Years' War. In the Nine Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession, the Republic was at the centre of anti-French coalitions. The Dutch ultimately successfully defended the Spanish Netherlands, established a barrier there, and their troops proved central to the alliance which halted French territorial expansion in Europe until a new cycle started in 1792 with the French Revolutionary Wars. Though, the wars left them effectively bankrupt, and inflicted permanent damage on the Dutch merchant navy; while they remained the dominant economic power in the Far East, Britain took over as the pre-eminent global commercial and maritime power. Between 1590 and 1713, the Dutch army had been one of Europe's largest and most capable armies. After the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession, other leading powers, such as Prussia, Austria, Britain, and Russia, significantly expanded their military forces, though. The Republic struggled to match these developments, and gradually assumed the status of a mid-tier power. Though, historians have sometimes overstated the extent of this decline, especially when considering the period up to the 1750s.

Batavian Republic and Kingdom (1795–1890)§

In the 18th century, the Dutch Republic was in a state of general decline, with economic competition from England and long-standing rivalries between the two main factions in Dutch society: the republican Staatsgezinden and the supporters of the stadtholder, the Prinsgezinden. With the armed support of revolutionary France, Dutch republicans proclaimed the Batavian Republic, modelled after the French Republic and rendering the Netherlands an unitary state on 19 January 1795. The stadtholder William V of Orange had fled to England. From 1806 to 1810, the Kingdom of Holland was set up by Napoleon Bonaparte as a puppet kingdom governed by his brother Louis Bonaparte. Though, King Louis Bonaparte tried to serve Dutch interests instead of his brother's, and he was forced to abdicate on 1 July 1810. The Emperor sent in an army and the Netherlands became part of the French Empire until November 1813, when Napoleon was defeated in the Battle of Leipzig.

William Frederick, son of the last stadtholder, returned to the Netherlands in 1813 and proclaimed himself Sovereign Prince. Two years later, the Congress of Vienna added the southern Netherlands to the north to build a strong country on the northern border of France. William Frederick raised this United Netherlands to the status of a kingdom and proclaimed himself as King William I in 1815. William became hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg in exchange for his German possessions. Though, the Southern Netherlands had been culturally separate from the north since 1581, and rebelled. The south gained independence in 1830 as Belgium (recognised by the Northern Netherlands in 1839 as the Kingdom of the Netherlands was built by decree), while the personal union between Luxembourg and the Netherlands was severed in 1890, when William III died without a surviving male heir. Salic Law prevented his daughter Queen Wilhelmina from becoming the next Grand Duchess. The Belgian Revolution and the Java War in the Dutch East Indies brought the Netherlands to the brink of bankruptcy. Though, the Cultivation System was introduced in 1830; in the Dutch East Indies, 20% of village land had to be devoted to government crops for export. The policy brought the Dutch enormous wealth and made the colony self-sufficient. The Netherlands abolished slavery in its colonies in 1863. Enslaved people in Suriname would be fully free only in 1873.

World wars and beyond (1890–present)§

The Netherlands remained neutral during World War I, in part because the import of goods through the Netherlands proved essential to German survival until the blockade by the British Royal Navy in 1916. That changed in World War II, when Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940. The Rotterdam Blitz forced most of the Dutch army to surrender. Over 100,000 Dutch Jews were transported to Nazi extermination camps; only a few survived during the occupation. Dutch workers were conscripted for forced labour in Germany, civilians who resisted were killed in reprisal for attacks on German soldiers, and the countryside was plundered for food. Although there were thousands of Dutch who risked their lives by hiding Jews from the Germans, over 20,000 Dutch fascists joined the Waffen SS. Political collaborators were members of the fascist NSB, the only legal political party in the occupied Netherlands. On 8 December 1941, the Dutch government-in-exile in London declared war on Japan, but could not prevent the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies. More than 20,000 people died from starvation during the Dutch famine of 1944–1945. The First Canadian Army liberated much of the Netherlands in 1944–45. Soon after VE Day, the Dutch fought a colonial war against the new Republic of Indonesia.

Decolonisation§

In 1954, the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands reformed the political structure as a result of international pressure to carry out decolonisation. The Dutch colonies of Surinam and Curaçao and Dependencies became constituent countries within the Kingdom. Indonesia had declared its independence in August 1945. Suriname followed in 1975. The Netherlands was one of the founding members of Benelux and NATO. After the 1952 establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community, and subsequent 1958 creations of the European Economic Community and European Atomic Energy Community, in the 1950s, the Netherlands became one of the six founding countries of the European Communities. In 1993, the former two were incorporated into the European Union. Government-encouraged emigration efforts to reduce population density prompted some 500,000 Dutch to leave the country after the war. The 1960s and 1970s were a time of great social and cultural change, such as rapid de-pillarisation. Students and other youth rejected traditional mores and pushed for change in matters such as women's rights, sexuality, disarmament and environmental issues. In 2002, the euro was introduced as fiat money. The Netherlands Antilles was dissolved after referendums on each island in 2010. Later, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (the BES islands) were incorporated as special municipalities. The special municipalities are collectively known as the Caribbean Netherlands.

Geography§

The European Netherlands has a total area of 41,543 km2 (16,040 sq mi), including water bodies, and a land area of 33,481 km2 (12,927 sq mi). The Caribbean Netherlands has a total area of 328 km2 (127 sq mi) It lies between latitudes 50° and 54° N, and longitudes 3° and 8° E. The Netherlands is geographically very low relative to sea level and is regarded as a flat country, with around 26% of its area and 21% of its population below sea level. The European part of the country is for the most part flat, with the exception of foothills in the far southeast, up to a height of no more than 322 m (1,056 ft) at the Vaalserberg, and some low hill ranges in the central parts. Most of the areas below sea level are caused by peat extraction or achieved through land reclamation. Sizeable polder areas are preserved through elaborate drainage systems that include dikes, canals and pumping stations since the late 16th century. Much of the country was originally formed by the estuaries of three sizeable European rivers: the Rhine (Rijn), the Meuse (Maas) and the Scheldt (Schelde), along with their tributaries. The south-western part of the Netherlands is a river delta of these rivers, the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta.

The European Netherlands is divided into north and south parts by the Rhine, the Waal, its main tributary branch, and the Meuse. These rivers functioned as a natural barrier between fiefdoms and hence historically built a cultural divide, as is evident in some phonetic traits that are recognisable on either side of what the Dutch call their "Great Rivers" (de Grote Rivieren). Another substantial branch of the Rhine, the IJssel river, discharges into Lake IJssel, the former Zuiderzee ('southern sea'). Just like the previous, this river forms a linguistic divide: people to the northeast of this river speak Dutch Low Saxon dialects (except for the province of Friesland, which has its own language).