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FACTS
ABOUT NETHERLANDS
 From
the 1300s to the early 1500s, the area known as the Netherlands (present-day Holland
and Belgium were part of
the Holy Roman Empire. In the mid-1500s, the Netherlands became part of the
Spanish Empire. In the 1530s, most of
the inhabitants of the Upper Netherlands (the Dutch) became Protestants while
the inhabitants of the Lower Netherlands
(the Flemish and Walloons) remained Catholic.
The next 40 years saw intermittent warfare as the Catholic Spanish
tried unsuccessfully to keep the Dutch from establishing a separate country,
the United Provinces of the Netherlands,
and atrocities by both the Dutch and the Spanish. The Spanish finally acceded to an
independent country in the 1579 Treaty of Utrecht.
 Starting
in the late 1500s, the Dutch republic became a world leader in the
exploration and settlement of the new lands in the Western Hemisphere and Asia. Dutch
merchants created the Dutch East Indies Company, which established trading
posts on the southern tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope), present-day New
York City (New Amsterdam, 1619-69), and the East Indies (present-day
Indonesia, 1629-1948). After the
French Revolution and during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Netherlands
became a kingdom under one of Napoleon’s brothers. In 1815, the Congress of Vienna
reestablished the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which included
Catholic Belgium. In 1830, Belgium
seceded and formed a separate kingdom. The Netherlands
remained neutral in World War I, but suffered invasion and occupation by Germany
in World War II. A modern, industrialized nation, the Netherlands is also a large
exporter of agricultural products. The country was a founding member of NATO
and the EEC (now the EU), and participated in the introduction of the euro in 1999.
[by Dr. Robert Kane]
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AREA: |
41,526 sq km, about the size of New Jersey |
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CLIMATE: |
Temperate; marine; cool summers and mild
winters |
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ELEVATION: |
Lowest point--7
meters below sea level; about 50% of the present land surface is below sea level. For centuries, the Dutch have diligently
worked to reclaim land from the
North Sea and turn it into large areas (polders) for farming.
Highest point--322 m above sea level |
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POPULATION: |
16,407,491 (July 2005 est.) |
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ETHNIC GROUPS: |
Dutch 83%, other 17% (of which 9% are non-Western origin mainly Turks,
Moroccans, Antilleans,
Surinamese, and Indonesians) (1999 est.) |
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RELIGIONS: |
Roman Catholic 31%, Dutch Reformed 13%, Calvinist 7%, Muslim
5.5%, other 2.5%, none 41%
(2002) |
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GOVERNMENT: |
Constitutional monarchy |
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CAPITAL: |
Amsterdam; The
Hague is the seat of government
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ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS: |
12 provinces |
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DEPENDENT AREAS: |
Aruba, Netherlands
Antilles |
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INDEPENDENCE: |
23 January 1579 |
[source: CIA World Factbook]
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