Welcome to the Netherlands Portal
Welkom bij het Nederlandportaal!
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
The Netherlands, informally Holland, is a country located 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; it borders Germany to the east and Belgium to the south, with a North Sea coastline to the north and west. It shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany, and Belgium. 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.
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. Its mixed-market advanced economy 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. Being a developed country, the Netherlands is a founding member of the European Union, Eurozone, G10, NATO, OECD, and WTO, 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. (Full article...)
Selected biography
Enchanted by his new homeland of New Netherland, Van der Donck made detailed accounts of the land, vegetation, animals, waterways, topography, and climate. Van der Donck used this knowledge to actively promote immigration to the colony, publishing several tracts, including his influential Description of New Netherland. Charles Gehring, Director of the New Netherland Project, has called it "the fullest account of the province, its geography, the Indians who inhabited it, and its prospects…It has been said that had it not been written in Dutch, it would have gone down as one of the great works of American colonial literature."
Did you know (auto-generated)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
- ... that Tjarda Struik is the Netherlands' first female mayor to be nearly blind, and a TikTok influencer?
- ... that the Jewish cemetery in the Dutch city of Hoorn was cleared in 1968 to make room for a roadway, and the bodily remains and gravestones were moved to the public cemetery?
- ... that the Argentina and Netherlands national football teams have played each other at every other FIFA World Cup since 1998?
- ... that the flag of Sint Maarten depicts the friendship monument delineating the boundary between the Dutch and French sections of the island?
- ... that the letters on the platform walls of Wibautstraat metro station refer to the offices of Dutch newspapers that were located on the street above?
- ... that when England moved to take over the Dutch colony of New Netherland in 1664, a delegation met at Stuyvesant Farm to negotiate the Articles of Surrender?
Categories
Related portals
Featured content
Extended content
| ||
---|---|---|
This page gives an overview of all featured content ( Featured articles
Featured lists
|
Things you can do
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/1f/Clipboard.svg/48px-Clipboard.svg.png)
The Dutch Wikiportal is currently under construction. Help would be greatly appreciated!
See also:
Add yourself to the category of Wikipedians located in the Netherlands.
Wikiprojects
![]() |
You are invited to participate in the WikiProject Netherlands, a WikiProject dedicated to developing and improving articles about the Netherlands. |