Map of the Netherlands

The Netherlands is also known as Holland. Actually Holland is the name of the two largest provinces (North and South), that's why this informal designation of "Holland" became much used. The Netherlands is limited north and west by the North Sea, east by Germany and south by Belgium. The country has a land surface of 41,526 km2 and a population of 16.15 million inhabitants.

Although Amsterdam is the constitutional capital, The Hague keeps the head of government, the royal residence and most embassies.

The country is one of the most densely populated in the world. The Dutch are known by the dikes, tulips, windmills, clogs and its social tolerance. The Dutch liberal policies are usually mentioned and used as (good or bad) examples in other countries.

The most relevant fact of the Netherlands geography is that the territory is extremely flat. Approximately half of the land is under 1 meter above sea level and a good part of it is actually bellow sea level. The highest point, Vaalserberg, in the southeastern border, is 321 meters high. Many areas are protected by dikes and dams, actually some regions, including most of the modern province of Flevoland, were conquered to the sea and are known as polders.

The country is divided in two by the rivers Rhine (Rijn), Waal and Mose (Maas).

	History

After the end of the ice age, various paleolithic nomadic groups lived in the Netherlands. Agriculture arrived in the Netherlands in about 5000 B.C., but was only practised on the loess-plateau in the very south (Zuid-Limburg). In the first century BC, the Romans came to the southern Netherlands, which formed most of the Roman province of Germania Inferior. For the majority of the Roman occupation, the boundary of the Roman Empire lay along the Rhine. Romans built the first cities in the Netherlands, most importantly Utrecht, Nijmegen, and Maastricht. The northern part of the Netherlands, outside the Roman Empire, where the Frisians lived (and still do), was also heavily influenced by its strong southern neighbour. The Romans also introduced the script.

After the fall of the Roman Empire and the subsequent period of turmoil, the Netherlands was divided in three parts, the Frisians living by the coast, the Saxons in the east, and the Franks in the south. The Franks managed to overcome their neighbours. Under Charlemagne, a Frankish empire was built, having its heartland in the future Belgium and northern France, and spanning France, Germany, northern Italy, and several other regions. The Frankish empire divided and re-united several times, in the end giving rise to two major powers, France and the Holy Roman Empire in Germany. The Netherlands formed part of the latter. The Holy Roman Empire, however, did not retain political unity. Local vassals made their countships and duchies into private kingdoms and felt not much obliged to the emperor, who over large parts of the nation governed only in name. Large parts of what now comprise the Netherlands were governed by the count of Holland, the duke of Gelre, the duke of Brabant and the bishop of Utrecht, but Friesland and Groningen in the north kept their independence, being governed by the lower nobility. Most of what is now the Netherlands and Belgium was united by the duke of Burgundy.

Through inheritance, the area became a possession of the Habsburg dynasty under Charles V in the late 15th century. In the Netherlands, part of the population, influenced by the Reformation, became Protestants. This was not liked by Charles's son and successor Philip II of Spain, who also was very distant in attitude (never visiting the Low Countries himself), whereas his father had been raised in Ghent (Belgium) and had become lord of the Netherlands before he became king of Spain. Philip's attempts to enforce religious persecution of the Protestants and his endeavours to centralise government, justice and taxes led to a revolt, starting when the seven Dutch provinces united in the Union of Utrecht in 1579 and formed the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (also known as the "United Provinces"). William of Orange, a nobleman, took the lead in what is called the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648). On January 30, 1648, the Peace of Westphalia confirmed the independence of the United Provinces from Spain.

During the Eighty Years' War the Dutch also started large-scale overseas trade — they hunted whales near Svalbard, traded spices with India and Indonesia, started colonies in Brazil and New Amsterdam (now New York), South Africa, the West Indies. The wealth accumulated from all this trade led to the 17th century being called the golden age (de gouden eeuw) of the Netherlands. As the Netherlands were a republic they were governed by regents, an aristocracy of city-merchants, rather than by a king or by nobility. In principle every city and province had its own government and laws. There was much independence of the various cities and districts, although some of the lands belonging to the republic had provincial official status, such as Brabant and the cities Venlo and Maastricht, now in present-day Limburg (Netherlands).

With the independence of the Netherlands, a decline of the wealth of the Dutch set in. In 1650, the stadtholder William II, Prince of Orange died, leaving the nation without a powerful ruler. The following year, England imposed the 1651 Navigation Act, which severely hurt Dutch trade interests. A fight over the Act resulted in the First Anglo-Dutch War, which lasted from 1652 to 1654, ending in the Peace of Westminster, by which the Navigation Act remained in effect.

The Second Anglo-Dutch War began in 1665 when the English declared war — they had already attacked Dutch settlements in the New Netherlands. While the Dutch were also troubled by French invasions in the Spanish Netherlands — present-day Belgium — the English and Dutch signed a peace treaty: the 1667 Peace of Breda, after Dutch admiral Michiel de Ruyter destroyed a large part of the English fleet on the Thames. It was agreed that the English would keep the Dutch possesions in North America (the area around current New York City), while they give control of Suriname to the Dutch. Also, the Navigation Act was loosened.

1672 is known in the Netherlands as the Rampjaar (disaster year). England declared war on the Republic, (the Third Anglo-Dutch War), followed by France, Münster and Cologne, which had all signed alliances against the Republic. France, Cologne and Münster invaded the Republic, while an English attempt to land could only just be prevented. In the meantime, a new stadtholder, William III, was appointed. Later, two important politicians during the stadtholderless era, Johan and Cornelis de Witt were brutally murdered in The Hague. With the aid of other German nations, the Dutch succeed in fighting back, leading to a peace with Cologne and Münster in 1674, after England also agreed to peace, in the Second Peace of Westminster. In 1678, peace was made with France, though the Spanish and German allies felt betrayed by the treaty signed in Nijmegen. When the English king James II of England was dethroned by him, William III was asked to become king of England in 1688.

At the end of the 18th century, unrest was growing in the Netherlands. Fights were starting between the Orangists, wanting stadtholder William V of Orange to obtain more power, and the patriots, who under influence of the American and French Revolutions wanted a more democratic government. Holland was the first country to salute the American flag, and Britain declared war before the country could join a group of neutral countries sworn to mutual assistance. This Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780–1784) proved a disaster for the Netherlands, particularly economically. In 1785 there was a democratic ('patriotic') revolt, but the House of Orange called upon their Prussian relatives to put it down. Many patriots fled the country to France.

After the French Revolution, French republican armies invaded the Netherlands and settled the internal strife in favour of the Patriots, who created the short-lived Batavian Republic. French influence was strong, and Napoleon turned the Netherlands (including a small part of Germany) into the Kingdom of Holland, with his brother Louis (Lodewijk) Bonaparte as king. This also did not last very long, because when Napoleon noticed that his brother put the Dutch interests before the French, he made the Netherlands part of the French empire. On May 18 1803, the United Kingdom declared war on France after France refused to withdraw from Dutch territory. The House of Orange in the meantime signed a treaty with the UK in which they gave to that country the Dutch colonies in 'safekeeping' and ordered the colonial governors to surrender to the English. This put an end to most of the Dutch colonial empire. Guyana and Ceylon never returned to Dutch rule. The Cape colony was briefly returned to the Batavian Republic but became definitively British after 1806.

After the Napoleonic era the Netherlands were put back on the map of Europe. The country had always been part of the precarious balance of power that had kept France in check. Particularly the Russian tsar wanted the Netherlands to resume this role and wanted the colonies to be returned. A compromise was struck with Britain at the Congress of Vienna, whereby only Indonesia was returned, but the North and South of the Netherlands reunited. The country became a monarchy, with the son of the last stadtholder William V, the prince of Orange as king William I. His United Kingdom of the Netherlands originally consisted of what is now the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, but the French-speaking Belgian ruling minority soon began feeling like second-class citizens. The primary factors that contributed to this feeling were religious (the predominantly Catholic South versus the mostly Protestant North), economic (the South was industrialising, the North had always been a merchants' nation) and linguistic (the French-speaking South was not just Wallonia, but also extended to the French-speaking bourgeoisie in the Flemish cities). In 1830 the situation exploded, the Belgians revolted and declared independence from the North. King William sent an army in 1831, but it was forced to retreat after a few days when the French army was mobilised. The North refused to recognise Belgium until 1839.

In World War I, the Netherlands remained a neutral country, but the army mobilised when war broke out in August 1914. The German invasion of Belgium that same year led to a large flow of refugees from that country (about 1 million).

At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the Netherlands declared their neutrality again. However, on May 10, 1940, Nazi Germany launched an attack on the Netherlands and Belgium and overran most of the country quickly, fighting against a poorly-equipped Dutch army. On May 14, only a small number of battlefields remained, among others at Rotterdam. In Rotterdam, the bombardment killed about 800 people and destroyed large parts of the city. The royal family had already fled to England.

Persecution of the Jews, of which about 140,000 lived in the Netherlands at the start of the war, including some 20,000 refugees, started immediately after the invasion. In 1942, a transport camp was erected near Westerbork. Concentration camps were built near Vught and Amersfoort. At the end of the war, only about 20,000 of the 140,000 Dutch Jews remained alive.

Immediately after the liberation of the Dutch East Indies from Japan, on August 17, 1945, the colony declared its independence as Indonesia. A confusing phase followed, known as the Indonesian National Revolution, with the Netherlands recognising the new country on the one hand, while fighting the Indonesian nationalists in two wars, or "police actions". Increasing international pressure from the United Nations, and the United States (which threatened to stop Marshall Plan aid), and Indonesian determination led the Netherlands to accept the new situation. Indonesia formally gained independence on December 27, 1949. Only the western half of New Guinea remained Dutch (until 1961).

Although it was originally expected that the loss of the Indies would lead to an economic downfall, the reverse appeared true, and in the 1950s the Netherlands quickly increased its wealth. In 1952 the Netherlands were among the founders of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) (together with France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium and Luxembourg). The ECSC would over time evolve into the European Union. A modern, industrialised nation, the Netherlands is also a large exporter of agricultural products. The country was a founding member of NATO and the EC, and participated in the introduction of the euro in 1999. In recent years the Dutch have often been a driving force behind the unification of European countries in the European Union.

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