Portal:Netherlands
Welcome to the Netherlands Portal
Welkom bij het Nederlandportaal!
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The Netherlands (Dutch: Nederland [ˈneːdərlɑnt] (listen)), informally Holland, is a country located in northwestern Europe with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of 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 in the North Sea. The country's 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.
With a population of 17.8 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 16th most densely populated country in the world and the second-most densely populated country in the European Union, with a density of 531 people per square kilometre (1,380 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 Netherlands has been a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a unitary structure since 1848. The country has a tradition of pillarisation 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 thirteenth-highest per capita income globally. (Full article...)
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- ... that two American officers bribed Japanese troops with their watches to have Dutch medical officer Henri Hekking allocated to their prisoner of war camp?
- ... that after the American Revolutionary War, only five of First Presbyterian Church of Newtown's congregants remained, so a nearby Dutch church took them in?
- ... that a group of escaped German prisoners established a short-lived Nazi state in the Dutch East Indies?
- ... that after closing his military academy at Chelsea, Lewis Lochée fought for the United Belgian States against the Austrian Netherlands and then wrote a history of the Belgian Revolution?
- ... that despite losing almost one thousand men capturing Malacca in 1641, the Dutch East India Company did not invest much time or energy into it afterward?
- ... that Dutch radio and TV presenter Hanneke Kappen presented the second Dutch radio show dedicated to heavy metal music?
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See also:
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- WikiProject Netherlands
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