Language: Dutch
Currency: Euro (€)
Calling Code: 31
The Netherlands is a country in the west of Europe. Outside the
Netherlands, people often talk about Holland, but that is only one
of the historical regions within the Netherlands. The country
borders Germany to the east and Belgium to the south. The north and
west have a long coastline on the North Sea.
The country is
of interest to tourists for several reasons: historic cities, large
and small, cycle paths in flat, green landscapes, and the coast with
its beaches and opportunities for water sports. The capital city of
Amsterdam is also very popular in the cannabis scene, as cannabis is
decriminalized in the Netherlands. In Amsterdam alone, there are
dozens of tolerated sales outlets for soft drugs, so-called coffee
shops. Outside the Netherlands, rumors are circulating that
Amsterdam even "smells" of cannabis, making Holland a particularly
popular travel destination for 18 and 19-year-olds.
The
country has a high standard of living, comparable to Germany.
Tourists are mainly known for its coasts and cities with historic
city centers. A particular magnet for visitors from all over the
world is Amsterdam, the largest city and capital of the Netherlands.
The landscape away from the urban centers offers a lot of variety
thanks to the presence of water everywhere. Despite the high
population density, or perhaps because of it, there are many unique
nature reserves that are worth visiting for tourists who love peace
and quiet. You don't have to look for mountains: the highest
elevation is in the southernmost tip at 321 meters. The forests that
once existed in the fertile areas such as Zeeland have fallen victim
to various saltwater floods. The dyked polders are mainly used for
agriculture.
The most densely populated areas are the west
and the center, with the four large cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam,
The Hague and Utrecht, known together as the Randstad. The Catholic
south already leads culturally to Belgium and southern Europe. The
north is considered remote and sparsely populated, similar to the
east, which, however, is economically and generally more important
due to its proximity to Germany.
Tourists from Germany and
other German-speaking countries play a major role for the
Netherlands. You will often find signs in German, and many people
(at least in the tourism industry) speak German or English.
In the Netherlands, a very optimistic attitude to life prevails,
which is expressed in the traditional Dutch Levenslied - this is
what Dutch folk songs are called. The most famous representative of
this is the Dutch singer Frans Bauer from Rosendaal in
Noord-Brabant.
The Netherlands is divided into provinces. They date from the early 19th century, some of them go back to much older units. For the state and administration, however, they are less important than, for example, the German federal states. Official statistics divide the provinces into four major groups:
Groningen - provincial
capital is Groningen.
Fryslân (in German and Dutch: Friesland) -
provincial capital is Leeuwarden.
Drenthe - provincial capital is
Assen.
Flevoland
Noord-Holland (North Holland) - the
provincial capital is Haarlem.
Zuid-Holland (South Holland) - provincial capital is The Hague
(official name: 's-Gravenhage, obsolete German: Haag).
Utrecht -
provincial capital is Utrecht.
Overijssel
- provincial capital is Zwolle.
Gelderland - provincial capital is
Arnhem (German: Arnhem).
Flevoland - provincial capital is Lelystad.
Limburg - provincial capital is Maastricht.
Noord-Brabant (North Brabant) - The provincial capital is
's-Hertogenbosch (German: Herzogenbusch).
Zeeland - provincial
capital is Middelburg.
Utrecht
Veenendaal
Wijk bij Duurstede
Woerden
Drenthe
Leeuwarden
Balk
Bolsward
Dokkum
Drachten
Franeker
Harlingen
Heerenveen
Gelderland
Apeldoorn
Arnhem
Barneveld
Culemborg
Doetinchem
Ede
Elburg
Harderwijk
Nijmegen
Tiel
Wageningen
Wijchen
Zutphen
Limburg
North Limburg
Arcen
Bergen
Gennep
Horst aan de Maas
Mook en Middelaar
Peel en Maas
Venlo
Venray
Lottum
Beesel
Echt-Susteren
Leudal
Maasgouw
Nederweert
Roerdalen
Roermond
Weert
Heerlen
Kerkrade
Maastricht
Sittard
Valkenburg aan de Geul
Vaals
's-Hertogenbosch (or Den Bosch)
Baarle
Bergen op
Zoom
Breda
Deurne
Eersel
Eindhoven
Geertrudenberg
Geldrop
Gemert
Grave
Helmond
Heusden
Klundert
Nuenen
Oisterwijk
Oosterhout
Oss
Overloon
Ravenstein
Roosendaal
Tilburg
Valkenswaard
Vught
Willemstad
Woudrichem
Zundert
Vlissingen
Westkapelle
Zierikzee
The Kingdom of the Netherlands consists of several regions, of which
Nederland (the Netherlands) is by far the largest and most populous. The
remaining regions are the remaining former colonies, namely islands or
island groups in the Caribbean. The Netherlands Antilles consist of the
autonomous islands of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, each with its own
government and constitution.
The islands of Bonaire, Saba and
Sint Eustatius, which are also located in the Caribbean, are also part
of the Netherlands Antilles, but are not autonomous, but part of the
Netherlands region and are referred to as Bijzondere gemeenten (Special
Municipalities). This constitutional status has no significance for
tourists, as the areas in the Caribbean are currently associated
territories and do not belong to the EU.
The coastal lowlands of the North Sea include large parts of the
Netherlands. It continues into Belgium and Germany, among other places.
The historical region of Friesland includes the Dutch province of
Fryslân, parts of the provinces of Noord-Holland and Groningen, as well
as parts of Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and the Danish part of
Jutland.
The remaining parts of the Netherlands (except the coastal
lowlands and the Vaalserberg) are part of the Central European lowland.
This large landscape continues into Germany and Belgium.
The Meuse
valley also extends into Belgium and France.
The historical region of
Limburg, with provinces of the same name in the Netherlands and Belgium,
as well as part of the present-day Belgian province of Liège.
The
historical region of Brabant, the heartland of what would later become
Belgium, extends into the Netherlands with Noord-Brabant.
The
Vaalserberg at the southern tip of the province of Limburg lies at the
border triangle with Belgium and Germany.
The three most important rivers are the Rhine, the Meuse and the
Scheldt, which flow mainly in an east-west direction. They divide the
country into those "above" and "below" the rivieren (rivers, meaning the
large rivers).
The Dutch water network, especially in the
southern half of the country, consists largely of rivers that do not
flow into one another, but rather split up again and again in the
Rhine-Meuse delta and sometimes rejoin later. Old names that do not take
into account the one or other manual river course corrections that have
been made can cause confusion among tourists. For example, Rotterdam is
located on the New Meuse, which contains almost exclusively water from
the Rhine, but certainly none from the Meuse.
Shortly after the German-Dutch border, the Rhine splits for the first
time, namely into the Nederrijn (Lower Rhine) and the much more
water-rich Waal. From the former mouth of the Meuse into the Rhine, the
Waal is called "Boven Mervede" (Upper Merwede). This forks again into
the New and Lower Merwede. The New Merwede carries the most water, and
its mouth in the sea, which is called Hollands Diep there, could be
described as the main mouth of the Rhine. This mouth occurs in the De
Biesbosch nature reserve.
The further course of the (northern)
Lower Merwede first forks into the Noord and the Old Maas. At its end,
the Noord connects with the lower reaches of the Lower Rhine, which is
called "Lek" from the branch of the Crooked Rhine, to form the New Maas.
In the port area of Rotterdam, the Old Maas and the New Maas finally
connect to form the "New Waterway", which flows into the North Sea at
Europort.
The Ijssel branches off from the Dutch Lower Rhine,
which flows into the Ijsselmeer.
The Kromme Rijn (Crooked Rhine)
branches off from the Lower Rhine, which becomes the Leidse Rijn. From
the railway bridge in Harmelen it is finally called the Oude Rijn (Old
Rhine), which itself flows into the North Sea. A small tributary of the
Old Rhine is the Grecht, which is connected to the upper reaches of the
Amstel by the Amstel-Grecht canal. The latter flows into a dyked part of
the Ijsselmeer in Amsterdam.
The Maas comes from France via Belgium and flows into the Hollands
Diep in the De Biesbosch nature reserve.
The former course of the
Maas up to just before its former confluence with the Rhine is now
called the “Abdeidechte Maas.”
The Scheldt also comes from France via Belgium. In the Dutch province
of Zeeland it forms a huge estuary in the form of the Oosterschelde in
the north. It is in turn separated from the sea by the Oosterschelde
dam. In the south the Scheldt flows into the Westerschelde. You can find
out more about the Scheldt in the article Scheldt-Rhine Route.
Other important waterways are the numerous canals that connect the
Scheldt, Maas and Rhine, among others. For example, coming from
Amsterdam you can travel by inland waterway to Rotterdam or Antwerp in
Belgium. Or take a boat trip from Cologne to Amsterdam.
Veluwe, partly a nature reserve
De Efteling, probably the most
important theme park in the country
Julianadorp, a holiday village on
the North Sea
Apenheul, monkey zoo near Apeldoorn with semi-tame
squirrel monkeys, among others
Baarle, the Belgian/Dutch border
puzzle
Two of the most important achievements in the fight against
water may be of interest to technology fans: the Afsluitdijk, which
turned the Zuiderzee into the IJsselmeer, and the Delta Works with the
attached theme park Neeltje Jans, the gigantic storm surge barrier at
the mouth of the large rivers in the province of Zeeland.
Entry requirements
The Netherlands is a full member of the EU. A
passport or identity card that has expired for a maximum of 1 year is
sufficient to enter the country, which is why it is not a problem for
citizens of the EU, the EEA and Switzerland. You can stay in the country
indefinitely and work without a permit. Some other nationals can also
enter the country for up to 90 days per calendar year without a visa. A
permit is required in any case to take up work. Many other nationals
require a Schengen visa to enter the country.
Bringing pets is
also no problem. However, the animals must be vaccinated and chipped.
Airplane
With Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport, the city of Amsterdam
has one of the largest airports in Europe. All major airlines fly to the
airport.
There are other airports in Eindhoven, Groningen,
Maastricht and Rotterdam.
Düsseldorf and Brussels-Zaventem
airports are just as suitable for arrival as Schipol.
Train
From Germany, there are fast ICE connections every two hours on the
Frankfurt (Main)–Cologne–Utrecht–Amsterdam route, and there are also
InterCity connections every two hours on the
Berlin–Hanover–Osnabrück–Hengelo–Amsterdam route.
In regional
transport, there are connections between Aachen and Heerlen (and from
there to Maastricht), between Hamm, Wuppertal, Düsseldorf and Venlo (and
from there on to Eindhoven and Rotterdam/The Hague); from Dortmund and
Münster to Enschede; from Leer to Groningen and from Arnhem via Emmerich
and on to Düsseldorf.
Further information is available on the
Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) website.
In the Netherlands, the
OV-chipkaart has been introduced, in addition to regional transport.
Platforms in larger towns are cordoned off and can no longer be entered
without an OV-chipkaart. The same applies to tunnels under train
stations, such as in Sittard. However, anyone arriving from abroad with
a paper ticket can usually still enter or leave the station as long as a
QR code is printed on the ticket. This also works with mobile phone
tickets, of course. However, you should deactivate the NFC function on
your mobile phone before scanning, as otherwise money can be debited
from your account if you use a digital payment app.
Nowadays, it
is usually no longer absolutely necessary to buy a ticket from a
machine, as it is now possible to check in and out with your own credit
or debit card (also with your mobile phone or smartwatch via NFC), just
like with an OV-chipkaart. All you have to do is hold the card up to the
card reader. When the tickets are checked, it is only clear whether you
have checked in with the card or not.
You can find out where this
is already possible on the "OVpay" website.
Bus
With the
spread of long-distance buses in Germany, the number of cross-border bus
routes has also increased continuously. An overview (NL) can be found on
Wiki OV-Nederland.
Car/motorcycle/bicycle
The Netherlands can
be easily reached by car and this is certainly the most frequently used
route. However, it should be noted that, especially on public holidays
and at the start of the holidays, many Germans regularly make their way
to the neighboring country, which can result in long traffic jams.
The most important border crossings from north to south are:
A280/A7 border crossing Bunde-Bad Nieuweschans
A30/A1 border crossing
Bad Bentheim-Oldenzaal
A3/A12 border crossing Elten-Zevenaar
A57/A77 border crossing Goch-Gennep
A40/A67 border crossing
Straelen-Venlo
A61/A74 border crossing Kaldenkirchen-Venlo
A4/A76
border crossing Aachen-Heerlen
It is important to fill up on the
German side (preferably just before the border) to avoid the high fuel
prices in the Netherlands.
Ship
It is also possible to take
boat trips on the Rhine and the Maas that lead to the Netherlands.
However, the journey is usually the goal and a river cruise is the
focus.
There are ferry connections from Great Britain
By plane
The former regional flights within the Netherlands were
discontinued a few years ago due to uneconomical operation. This means
that it is no longer possible to use the plane for travel within the
country.
By train
All major cities are connected by train. The
national railway company is the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS - Dutch
Railways). It offers Sprinter and Stoptreinen for local transport, and
Intercity trains for long-distance transport that do not require a
surcharge and stop at major train stations or important transfer points.
Information on disruptions to train services: vertragingen en
verstoringen
The Thalys high-speed train to Paris has its own
pricing system and cannot be used domestically. A surcharge must be paid
for the ICE International to Frankfurt/Main. The train can also be used
for travel within the Netherlands.
In some, mostly more rural
regions, it is not the NS that operates, but a regional railway company.
Through tickets are available and most offers are valid on trains
operated by different railway companies. When travelling with the OV
chip card or a one-time chip card, checking in and out with the various
railway companies is mandatory.
Night network
There is a night
train every night in both directions every hour between Rotterdam C,
Delft, The Hague HS, Leiden, Schiphol, Amsterdam C and Utrecht C. In
both directions, the first train (approx. 1.30 hours) stops in Amsterdam
Bijlmer ArenA. On Friday nights and Saturday nights, the night network
is supplemented by the connections Rotterdam C, Dordrecht, Breda,
Tilburg, Eindhoven; Utrecht C, 's-Hertogenbosch, Eindhoven, as well as
the route Utrecht C - Gouda - Rotterdam C. A surcharge or other ticket
is not necessary for these trains.
By bus
The Netherlands has
a dense regional bus network, which is offered by different providers
but with a uniform tariff system. The tariffs are not uniform, however.
Buurtbus
In sparsely populated areas there are buurtbus projects,
lines based on neighborhood initiatives that are served by minibuses.
Under Buurtbus you can see where these lines run.
Fares
Attention! The former strippenkaart has been abolished throughout the
Netherlands and is no longer valid. If you still have one from a
previous visit, you can throw it away or keep it as a souvenir.
OV-chipkaart
The OV-chipkaart (public transport chip card) can be
used as a ticket for all public transport (local and long-distance
passenger transport) in the Netherlands. Only some buurtbusses do not
yet accept the OV-chip card. It is still possible to buy a single ticket
from the driver on the bus or tram, but this is much more expensive than
traveling with the chip card.
How it works
The OV-chipkaart
looks like a check card. It contains a (invisible) chip and is
recognizable by the national pink logo. The card must be loaded with a
Reissaldo (credit) or Reisproduct (travel product). The credit is an
amount in euros that can be used to travel anywhere in the Netherlands.
A travel product is, for example, a single trip, a weekly ticket or a
subscription (see below).
Checking in and out
If the
OV-chipkaart is loaded with a travel product or sufficient credit, you
can check in. At the start of the journey, you hold your OV-chipkaart
against the screen of the access gate or a card reader that has the logo
on it. The entrance will then open or the card reader will beep briefly
to confirm. (A long beep indicates an error! Then repeat the process.)
At the end of the journey, you check out in the same way: you hold the
card against the screen of the exit gate or card reader. You must not
forget to check out, otherwise you will "continue your journey" or the
NS will deduct the deposit. A chargeback is only possible with personal
chip cards and is quite time-consuming.
Travel credit
The
OV-chipkaart can be topped up with a credit of up to € 150. To travel on
public transport, there must be a credit of at least € 4 on the card.
For train journeys, the minimum credit must be € 20, as a deposit is
deducted each time you check in, which is then offset against the
journey and returned when you check out. If you fail to check out, the
deposit is forfeited. If you forget to check out again, the card can be
blocked (this can happen the second time).
Scope
The chip card
is valid on all public transport (train, metro, tram, bus), but not on
local buses (buurtbussen) and taxis. It can be used wherever the logo is
visible: entrance and exit gates, mobile card readers, top-up stations,
credit readers, at the counter and/or other sales points.
The
OV-chipkaart is not yet valid on cross-border routes; a paper ticket
must still be purchased for these connections. Efforts are being made to
introduce the OV-chipkaart on these routes as well. This has so far been
implemented for the Groningen-Leer, Maastricht-Aachen and
Arnhem-Emmerich train connections. Acceptance on cross-border bus routes
is still a matter of luck. It should be noted that the domestic tariff
does not apply on these connections, but rather a (usually more
expensive) kilometer tariff.
Top-up the card
The chip card can
be topped up at the counters of the transport companies or at special
vending machines.
Types of cards
There are three types of
cards: a personal card, an anonymous and transferable card, and a
disposable card. The first two types can be loaded with subscriptions or
special fares, for example, but the personal chip card in particular
takes a certain amount of time to process. It is issued to people
residing in the Benelux countries and Germany and can be paid for online
using PayPal or a credit card. Tourists will mostly use the transferable
(blue) chip card or disposable tickets.
Prices
The price of an
OV-chipkaart depends on the transport company issuing it. At the moment
(2014), both the anonymous and the personal card cost €7.50 and are
valid for up to five years. In addition, a distinction is made between
several tariffs:
Boarding tariff: When checking in, a deposit,
the instaptarief, is deducted. This amount does not necessarily have to
be on the card, as long as the balance minus the boarding tariff does
not fall below -4 euros. When checking out, this amount is credited
back, minus the fare. The boarding fare depends on the means of
transport, the company, the type of card, the travel product booked on
it and the time of day.
Holders of an anonymous chip card pay
€ 4: bus, metro, tram and water bus;
€ 10: trains and Qliners from
Arriva;
€ 20: trains from NS, Breng, Connexxion, Syntus and Veolia.
Basic fare: Regardless of the distance travelled, a basic fare of
(2014) € 0.87 (with a discount of € 0.57) is paid for each journey. If
you change within 35 minutes of leaving a means of transport, this basic
fare does not have to be paid again.
Kilometre fares for bus, tram,
metro The kilometre price can vary depending on the region, concession,
company or line and costs between € 0.116 and € 0.306 in 2014. The total
price of a journey can be found on 9292.nl.
(Kilometer) fares for
railways. NS has a nationwide system of tariff units. Prices are
multiples of €0.10. Discounts are also rounded up or down to €0.10.
Children
A child up to 3 years old travels free of charge.
A
child from 4 to 11 years old, accompanied by an adult, travels for just
€2.50 (Railrunner, only available as a paper ticket).
Kids Vrij:
applies to children aged 4-11 and costs €15 per year. Children then
travel free of charge when accompanied by an adult. If the accompanying
person has a Vrij or Voordeel subscription, up to three Kids Vrij cards
are provided free of charge.
An unaccompanied child between 4 and 11
years old always travels with a discount.
Travel products
In
addition to the single journey (Enkele reis), the Dutch tariff system
has a number of reductions and discounts that require explanation:
Rush hour (HVZ - Dutch: spits) is Monday to Friday from 6:30 a.m. to
9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Altijd Vrij grants 100 percent
free travel on all means of transport where the OV chip card is valid.
It is available as a monthly or annual pass, with the monthly pass
costing €362.40.
Altijd Voordeel: is a discount card for travelers
who have to travel during rush hour (HVZ). The card is available as an
annual or monthly pass and costs €24.20 per month. During the HVZ there
is a 20 percent discount, at other times and on the weekday holidays
25.4, 27.4, 2.6 and 13.6. 40 percent is valid all day.
Dal Vrij: The
annual pass (€ 1294.80) grants free travel outside peak hours.
Dal
Voordeel: Outside peak hours, the traveler receives a 40 percent
discount. The annual subscription costs € 61.20.
Weekend Vrij: With
this annual subscription for € 427.20, you can travel freely on weekends
(Friday from 6:30 p.m.) and on public holidays and travel Mon-Fri
outside peak hours with a 40 percent discount.
All of these
subscriptions can only be loaded onto a personal chip card and must be
scanned before starting the journey and read out after the journey.
Otherwise they are not valid. This also applies to subscriptions with a
100 percent discount.
Since there are ticket machines at every
station, which usually do not accept cash and never bills, there is a
surcharge of €0.50 for each product that could have been bought from the
machine.
More information
You can find out more about the
OV-chipkaart on the website www.9292ov.nl (also in English).
By
bike
The Netherlands is a perfect country for cyclists. Not only
because the country is mostly flat, but also because the infrastructure
is largely adapted to the needs of cyclists. A distinction is made
between regular cyclists who use their bikes as a means of transport to
work, school or shopping, and who therefore rely on fast through routes,
and tourist cyclists who prefer to take a detour as long as they do not
have to go through an industrial area. These different needs are also
taken into account in the signage: red signs are aimed at everyday
cyclists, green signs are for tourist traffic. However, the cycle paths
should definitely be used if there are any.
A new development
that has come to the Netherlands from Belgium is also aimed at tourist
cyclists: the fietsknooppunten, a network of bicycle connection points.
Numbered cycle paths over scenic routes lead to these junctions. At each
junction you can usually choose between several further routes. The
advantage over previous cycle routes is that everyone is free to put
together their own route. The network is now nationwide. Here you can
choose your province (step 1), select the location (step 2) and then put
together your own route using the map (step 3).
The most general
transport association is the ANWB, which is also specifically aimed at
cyclists. After all, the club grew out of a cyclists' association and
has developed many cycle routes in the past. Even today, it is still
responsible for the signposts on all paths, including the bicycle
signposts and the small signpost mushrooms (paddenstoelen) on the
ground, which are aimed at cyclists and hikers. It is important that all
signposts have a number, which is also shown on the ANWB tourist maps
(up to 1:100,000).
As a counterpart to breakdown assistance for
motorists, there are Fietsservicepunten (service points for cyclists) at
inns and visitor centers near cycle routes for cyclists who have bad
luck on the road.
Bicycle theft is a big problem in the Netherlands, especially near
train stations or in larger cities. It is safe and cheap to use a
guarded bicycle parking area (stalling) at train stations or in the city
center. A parking space there costs ±1.25 € per day (2014). In
principle, you should use two different types of lock, as many thieves
only specialize in one type of lock. You should also always tie your
bike to a lamppost or something similar.
House owners or the
municipality sometimes put up signs indicating where you are not allowed
to park your bike, e.g. with hier geen rijwielen plaatsen, or geen
fietsen. If you don't comply, you run the risk of having your bike
removed at your own expense or of receiving a warning.
In cities,
bicycles are often stolen by drug addicts, who then sell them again.
They often offer their goods to passers-by on the street when they feel
they are not being watched by the police. Buying a stolen bike is also
illegal and the police can arrest the buyer. In any case, a fine of at
least €300 is due. The reasoning behind this is that anyone who buys a
bike for a suspiciously low price (€10-20) or in a suspicious place
(generally on the street) "can or should know" that the bike is stolen.
The rule applies here too: ignorance is no excuse.
Bicycle thefts
should be reported to the police for general reasons. Politician
statistics show that there is an ongoing problem with bicycle theft.
The best way to buy a bike legally is to go to a bike shop, but the
bikes aren't cheap there. Some bike rental companies also sell used
bikes legally. The bikes are then well maintained and fairly
inexpensive. Otherwise, the sale of used bikes is mostly done online
these days via sites like marktplaats.nl - the Dutch equivalent of eBay.
The public bike rental system OV-fiets offers more than 20,000
sturdy rental bikes at around 300 bike stations nationwide (mostly at
train or subway stations), which can be rented for up to 72 hours for €
3.85 per 24 hours or part thereof (as of 2019). The system was designed
for everyday users who want to bridge the last mile, but it is also very
suitable for tourists - once they have overcome the entry hurdle.
The prerequisite for a "subscription" to the OV-fiets is either a
personal (not anonymous!) OV-chipkaart, an NS-Flex registration or a
Utrecht Region Pass. You can get an OV-chipkaart for a one-off fee of
€7.50 even if you live and have a bank account in Germany. Once you have
received this, you can register for the OV-fiets by providing your
OV-chipkaart number. You may have to use the option of registering by
phone using the (Dutch-speaking) hotline, which requires the support of
friends who speak the language. Overall, you should allow several weeks
of lead time, but you can then use the option of renting an OV-fiets
spontaneously at any time for the next five years (then the OV-chipkaart
must be renewed).
You can get the Utrecht Region Pass without a
lead time, but with monthly fees (€6.50/first month, €2.50/each
subsequent month) and a valid credit card. It can be applied for online
or on site and must be picked up at one of the issuing offices (in
Schiphol, Utrecht or Amersfoort). Regardless of the name, it allows you
to rent OV-fietsen and use buses and trains throughout the Netherlands.
Don't forget to return the Utrecht Region Pass at the end of your
holiday, otherwise a) the monthly costs will continue and b) the €25.00
deposit will still be withheld. When you pick it up, ask for the
postage-paid envelope for returning it within the Netherlands and ask
for the return address in case you send the card back from your home
country by post.
In the Netherlands, around 5 million people
cycle an average of 14 times on a normal weekday. 11.5 million cycle
trips are made on Saturdays and 6.5 million on Sundays.
Taking
bicycles on public transport
On NS, Connexxion, Syntus and Veolia
trains, you can take your bike with you all day at weekends and on
public holidays with a bicycle day ticket for €6 each. On weekdays, this
is only possible outside peak times, i.e. before 6:30 a.m., between 9
a.m. and 4:30 p.m. and after 6 p.m. Arriva allows you to take your bike
on some routes for free. In most cases, you can only take a bike on
buses if you have a folding bike.
Speed limits in the Netherlands: 30/50 km/h in town, 80 km/h
outside town, 100 km/h on motorways, 100 km/h on motorways from 6 a.m.
to 7 p.m., 120/130 km/h from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. The maximum speed on
motorways during the day was reduced in 2020.
The traffic rules
in the Netherlands are very similar to those in Germany (except that
Dutch traffic lights generally do not have a red-yellow phase), so there
is no risk of major surprises. Speed checks are more frequent than in
Germany, in particular on some Dutch motorways the so-called section
control is used, in which every car between two measuring points is
photographed and the calculated average speed is used to determine
whether you were driving too fast.
If you are driving your own
car in the Netherlands, it is better to pay attention to the local
parking regulations. Parking fees are considered taxes in the
Netherlands and anyone who doesn't pay them is legally a tax evader and
can be arrested immediately the next time they enter the Netherlands.
This also applies, for example, to a mere transit via Schiphol Airport!
Fuel is significantly more expensive in the Netherlands than in
Germany. Therefore, if possible, you should fill up in Germany and make
do with this one tank until you return to Germany.
Taxis have a terrible reputation in the Netherlands. This is mainly
due to a failed liberalization in the early 2000s, when the license
requirement was abolished nationwide and anyone who wanted to could set
up their own taxi company. Numerous black sheep took advantage of this,
although excessive fares are still among the more harmless incidents -
robbery and even murder of passengers were not uncommon in the
Netherlands.
The government is now resorting to strict controls
and somewhat stricter regulation. The fare must now be clearly visible
on the taxi. However, calculating the fare using a taximeter is still
not compulsory - fares in the Netherlands are generally freely
negotiable and are only capped by the (very generously set) national
maximum prices. For this reason and because of the well-developed public
transport system, taxis are only rarely recommended in the Netherlands.
Dutch is the official and colloquial language in the whole of the
Netherlands, with dialects in the individual regions. Dutch is one of
the languages most closely related to German. German speakers can
recognize a relatively large amount of vocabulary, especially if they
see it written and know how to pronounce it correctly (for example,
Dutch ij like German ei, ui similar to au, oe like u). However,
understanding requires a course, especially if you want to understand
people who speak (normally) quickly and unclearly. German spoken very
slowly is usually well understood and the same is true the other way
around. You should beware of "false friends", for example, a winkel is
not a street corner but a shop, a zaak is not just an object but also a
business, a meer is a lake and the zee is the sea.
Alongside
Dutch, Frisian is the official language in the province of Fryslân
(Friesland). About half of the inhabitants of this province can speak
Frisian more or less well; Because of the many transitional forms
between the two languages, the exact number is difficult to determine.
This is why many Dutch people see Frisian as a Dutch dialect (even if
they neither understand it spoken nor written), although linguists
classify actual Frisian (Frysk) as a separate language.
In the
larger part of the southeastern province of Limburg, the Limburg dialect
is spoken, which represents a transition from Dutch to German dialects.
The east, especially in Drenthe, Groningen and the east of the province
of Gelderland, is considered to be Low Saxon. Until the 1950s, Germans
and Dutch on both sides of the border could understand each other quite
well, but the influence of the standard languages has now become too
strong. Limburg and Low Saxon, unlike Frisian, are not considered
languages. There are sometimes small groups of dialect enthusiasts with
their newsletters.
Addressing a Dutch person directly in German
is often considered impolite and should be avoided if possible. It is a
good idea to ask in English or Dutch whether English or German is spoken
and thus establish a common language basis.
Almost all Dutch
people have studied English, German and French at school. English is a
compulsory subject and many Dutch people speak the language quite well.
However, most people only study German and French for a short time, and
one of the two subjects can be dropped quite quickly. Since around 1980,
the younger generation has been speaking German or French much worse. It
is not appropriate to take German or French for granted that Dutch
people speak German or French. However, in percentage terms, more Dutch
people speak German than Germans speak English. It is more likely that
Dutch people are familiar with foreign languages, as films on TV and in
the cinema are traditionally not dubbed but shown with the original
soundtrack and Dutch subtitles.
Some Dutch people speak other
languages because of their migrant background. The two largest
immigrant groups are Moroccans and Turks, as well as people with an
Indonesian background. About half of Moroccans do not speak Arabic, but
Berber, and among those with Turkish ancestors there are many Kurds. The
Indonesian group is divided into many different ethnic groups.
Immigrants from Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles also often speak
the mixed languages Sranan Tongo (Suriname) and Papiamento (Antilles)
in addition to Dutch.
For museum visits, there is a Museumkaart (MJK) for the entire country, which is valid for one year. Over four hundred museums are connected to this system, which you can then visit for free (with a few exceptions). An additional fee may be charged for special exhibitions. The Museumkaart is available from most of the connected museums and costs (2018) €59.90 plus a €4.95 registration fee for those aged 18 and over. If you are under 18, you pay €32.45 plus a €4.95 registration fee. That may sound steep at first, but if you consider the relatively high prices for most museums, you usually recoup the costs very quickly. In the texts, the participating museums that offer free admission are marked with MJK.
Depending on the weather, tulips bloom in early spring between
mid-April and early May.
Keukenhof Tulip Park - The landscape
park, which is open between the end of March and mid-May, displays
thousands upon thousands of tulips.
Tulip Festival in the
Noordoostpolder
Flower parades - Various flower parades take place in
the Netherlands in spring. The most famous parade, Bloemencorso
Bollenstreek, with around 20 floats, runs from Noordwijk via Lisse (near
Keukenhof) to Haarlem in mid-April. Many thousands of spectators then
line the route.
The euro is also the legal tender in the Netherlands. However, 1 and 2 cent coins are no longer in circulation in the Netherlands and are hardly accepted any more. When paying in cash, the invoice amount is mathematically rounded to the nearest 5 cents. The Dutch expression is "afgerond", but this means both rounding up and down. Electronic payments (PIN) are not rounded.
Shops are normally open from 9:00 a.m. or 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. or
6:00 p.m., except on Saturdays. Then most shops close at 5 p.m. On
Monday mornings, most shops are closed with the exception of large
department stores and supermarkets. On Thursday evenings, shops in large
cities are open until 9 p.m. (koopavond), many smaller towns have their
koopavond on Friday evening. On Sundays, shops in large centers are
open, except on special shopping Sundays. Shops are closed on public
holidays: New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter, King's Day,
Befrijdingsdag, Ascension Day, Pentecost, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
Shops close earlier on St. Nicholas' Eve (5 December) and Oudejaarsavond
(31 December).
Many supermarkets have extended their opening
hours in recent years. Most open at 9 a.m., some even at 8 a.m. or 8.30
a.m. Small supermarkets close at 6 p.m., the larger chains stay open
until 8 p.m., some until 8.30 p.m., 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. Unlike other
shops, supermarkets are often open on Monday mornings.
Banks in
the Netherlands have different opening hours. Most banks are open from
Tuesday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Monday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Banks are closed at weekends. You can then use the border exchange
offices (GWK) at the larger train stations.
In the Netherlands, so-called soft drugs such as cannabis are not
allowed, but consumption and possession are tolerated under certain
circumstances. If the police catch a user with a certain small amount,
this does not lead to a punishment, but may lead to an entry in the
police record.
The concept of Dutch drug policy is that
interested people consume these drugs in so-called coffee shops. These
are usually cafés or establishments that are more like hotels. The exact
rules are determined by the respective municipality. In the Netherlands
itself, there are strong supporters and opponents of the toleration
policy; in recent decades the number of coffee shops has decreased. Most
coffee shops are in Amsterdam (25 percent of all coffee shops in the
Netherlands can be found here).
Due to drug tourism from abroad,
there is constant discussion about restricting coffee shops to Dutch
residents. However, government attempts in this direction have so far
always failed due to resistance from some municipalities (especially
Amsterdam), as the drugs also attract many tourists who can afford to
pay. Some municipalities near the border, especially along the Belgian
border (not the German one), have now banned foreigners from visiting
coffee shops.
The traditional cuisine of the Netherlands is rather monotonous and
characterized by poor man's ingredients such as potatoes. The most
famous of these dishes is probably the stamppot, a mixture of potatoes
and a vegetable such as endive, sauerkraut or kale. But due to the
colonial history and immigration of the last few decades, there are a
few Indonesian restaurants in the Netherlands. Some typical Dutch
recipes can be found here in the cooking wiki
Dutch people
usually eat their main hot meal of the day in the evening, called
avondeten (dinner). In the morning there is an ontbijt (breakfast) and
lunch at noon. Both are usually combined with a sandwich, and for lunch
there are also various sandwich variations. So you shouldn't expect too
much at lunch.
Coffee and tea as well as all kinds of
non-alcoholic drinks are available in koffiehuizen, tearooms or
lunchrooms. A café is more like a German pub than a German café with
coffee and cake. A coffee shop, on the other hand, is a bar that sells
so-called soft drugs. If you want to get to know Dutch specialties, fish
restaurants and pancake houses are recommended.
For several
decades there have also been eetcafés, lunchrooms and snack bars, one
level below restaurants with less space and a smaller selection of
dishes. Snack bars are sometimes just stalls where you can eat while
standing. "Food from the wall" refers to the walls next to snack bars
and stalls where you can put in a coin and get a hamburger or something
similar from a glass compartment (originally known under the brand name
FEBO).
Perhaps more often than in Germany, the Dutch eat or order food from Chinese restaurants. The "Chinese" in the Netherlands tends to be cheaper, although there are both upscale restaurants and cheap places. In the Netherlands, Chinese is usually called Chinese-Indian and refers less to the People's Republic of China or India than to the former colony of the Dutch East Indies, today's Indonesia. The Chinese cuisine there has mixed with Indonesian cuisine, which makes it unique. Typical is the use of satay or the pork dish babi pangang: fried lean pork strips. The spice sauce sambal adds spiciness. Incidentally, almost every Dutch supermarket has a corner with ingredients from "Chinese-Indian" cuisine.
In addition to friet (French fries, also called friet/frietjes or
patat/patatje), typical Dutch fast food includes the use of leftover
meat, such as frikandel, the contents of which represent one of the last
secrets of this earth. Mayonnaise is called frietsaus, by the way. A
portion of fries with frietsaus and small, raw pieces of onion, and
often another sauce, is called patat oorlog (literally: war fries). The
exact appearance of this battlefield varies from region to region. Patat
(or many other things) with satésaus, which is made from peanuts, is
typical of the country. If you order something with saté, then it often
means meat skewers with satésaus (usually chicken or pork).
Tip:
Look for "Ambachtelijke friet". Because you get very good French fries
made on site from fresh, usually regional potatoes. Vlaamse friet are
usually a bit thicker.
Croquettes are also popular; They are
larger than German potato croquettes and are more like a sausage than a
pure side dish. They are often served on bread or rolls for lunch.
Rundvlees-kroketten (beef) and groente-kroketten (vegetable, vegetarian)
are very common.
You shouldn't expect currywurst or Krakauer, and
Dutch sausages (saucijzen) are usually seasoned differently to German
ones. A popular snack option is saucijzenbroodjes, warmed-up puff pastry
with small sausages.
Bockwursts are called knakworstjes, but they
don't have the crunchy bite that is known in Germany. The regional
sausage makers seem to have a preference for hard, dry sausages. A Dutch
sausage counter offers many types of sausage that are not available in
Germany. The sausage is usually sliced very thinly - if you like it
thicker, just put two slices on the bread. This also includes horse
meat, which is mainly available as wafer-thinly sliced, very salty
rookvlees (smoked meat). Gelderse Rookworst (cooked, smoked meat sausage
from Gelderland) is popular throughout the country. It is made from lean
pork and eaten on bread, but above all as a main meal (for example in a
stamppot).
The Dutch eat herring that has been caught as freshly
as possible and marinated in salt at a street stall raw, under the name
Hollandse Nieuwe (Dutch new one, meaning: catch) or Maatjesharing. In
German, this is shortened to Matjes, which Dutch people without German
understand differently. The fish is traditionally heavily salted for
preservation reasons and is often eaten with raw onions. Note: The real
Hollandse Nieuwe is only sold from mid-June. Herring caught before this
is not fat enough or it is the last herring from the old catch.
Dutch bread (almost exclusively wheat bread, which comes in the basic
varieties of white bread, brown bread and wholemeal bread) is not
considered particularly impressive, and the Dutch agree. But fresh bread
tastes good here too. It is recommended to toast it "lightly". Also
always popular with German tourists are the small round krentenbollen,
soft raisin buns, which also taste surprisingly good with cheese or
liver sausage. The small raisins known in Germany as currants are also
baked into krentenbrood. At a good baker, this cake substitute looks
almost black and tastes excellent with butter. If the bread contains
less than 30% currants, it can only be sold as vruchtebrood. Almost
unknown, but excellent as a base for sweets, is the beschuit, a round
rusk, which is softer than its German counterpart.
Traditional
cakes are the boterkoek (a hard cake with a lot of butter) and the
gemberkoek (ditto with ginger). Oranjekoek, a cake with a pink topping
and a fresh orange flavor, is popular at royal celebrations and
tournaments of the Dutch national team. Stroopwafels (syrup waffles),
which originally come from Gouda, are always popular with tourists. You
can buy them in the supermarket, but they are especially tasty when
freshly made at a street stall.
In addition to stroopwafels, you
might buy the following from a supermarket:
vla, a liquid pudding in
various flavors,
mergpijpjes, literally "spinal tubes," which despite
the name are made of marzipan and foam cream,
rondo's, an
almond-flavored pastry.
Spekulatius, the Dutch version of
speculaas, is also worth trying, but is more of a St. Nicholas and
Christmas treat.
Pindakoeken, topped with peanuts, can be enjoyed
at any time of the year.
"Hagelslag" and "muisjes" are chocolate or
sugar sprinkles that children like to eat on their bread in the morning.
They come in numerous variations.
Stamped muisjes (Stamped mice) is
aniseed-flavored powdered sugar that is also often used as a sweet
spread on bread.
Pindakaas is a lightly salted peanut spread that is
available with or without pieces of peanut.
A nightlife is to be expected especially in the big cities and in student towns such as Groningen or Nijmegen. In recent years, the so-called uitgaansgeweld, violence when going out, has been a big topic in the news. Because of the senseless reasons behind it, it is also called zinloos geweld.
There are many accommodation options in the Netherlands in various
price ranges.
Hikers' cabins (Trekkershutten)
Camping
In
addition to large and sometimes quite expensive campsites, there are
various facilities that reduce the level of comfort considerably but are
also quite inexpensive. These include bij de boer (camping at the
farmer's) and Stichting Vrije Recreatie (Foundation for Free
Recreation), all of which send out a booklet with the names and
addresses of the farms involved for a small fee.
There are also the
Natuurkampeerterreinen (nature campsites) with very different campsites,
mostly located in beautiful nature, often at a country house or in a
forestry office. For € 15 you can buy the Groene Boekje (Green Book),
which gives you the nature campsite card that allows you to camp at the
associated campsites. The campsites of the State Forestry Office
Staatsbosbeheer are particularly noteworthy in this context. These are
located in the middle of nature and are usually very quiet.
A special
type of camping is paalkamperen, "wild" camping in designated areas.
Comfort: a tap with unfiltered water, but there are no costs. (Info:
kamperen is only in Dutch.) Otherwise, wild camping is of course
strictly prohibited in the Netherlands and is also quite expensive.
Youth hostels in all parts of the Netherlands (30 of them), under the
name Stayokay.
Hotels, private holiday homes and holiday apartments
can be found in the respective local articles.
Dutch bachelor's and master's degree courses are equivalent to German degree courses. In the Netherlands there are six universities with a broad general education focus, three technical universities, four universities with a special focus and four theological universities
The King's Day in the Netherlands is a real experience and worth a
trip. King Willem-Alexander has been head of state since 2013. His
birthday on April 27 is a public holiday. If April 27 falls on a Sunday
(as in 2014), King's Day is celebrated on April 26. Events, street
parties and concerts take place all over the country. The king visits
one or two different places every year. Flea markets (Dutch: vrijmarkt
or rommelmarkt) are widespread and do not require a permit or tax on
this day. Many Dutch people show their connection to the royal family by
wearing orange clothing and orange accessories such as glasses, pennants
and wigs. In some places, people celebrate wildly the evening before
(koningsavond). Because of the crowds on the streets, you should plan
more time for the journey home, especially in big cities.
From
1949 to 2013, Queen's Day was celebrated on April 30th. Many Dutch
people therefore associate their childhood memories with this date. Some
very orange-loving individuals and villages also celebrate the birthdays
of other members of the royal family.
For larger cities, there
are local websites that provide an overview of local events on this
typically Dutch holiday. Put on an orange hat and join in the
celebrations!
Remembrance of the Dead on May 4th and Liberation
Day on May 5th
As the German troops in the Netherlands surrendered on
May 5th, 1945, this is considered the day that the war ended in the
Netherlands. There is a large memorial event in Amsterdam and others
across the country. Afterwards, there is more of a festival atmosphere
with stalls and music. Some Dutch people celebrate the day more
intensely than others.
On the evening before, on May 4th, the
Dutch hold two minutes of silence from 8 p.m. Silence reigns throughout
the country, and telephone calls would be considered a serious breach of
morality. Trains and buses stop, but not other car traffic. Flags fly at
half-mast until sunset. German tourists do not have to expect open
hostilities on May 4th and 5th, but should be aware of the background
and not celebrate loudly on the evening of May 4th.
In the Netherlands, Saint Nicholas is called Sinterklaas, often
abbreviated to de Sint. His companion is Zwarte Piet (Black Peter). His
companion is not a gloomy servant Rupert, but a cheerful "Moor"; the
performer therefore puts on black or brown make-up and wears a
historical-oriental costume. A Sinterklaas is often accompanied by
several or even a large number of Zwarte Pieten.
Since 2013,
there has been a very heated debate about Zwarte Piet: critics believe
that the figure of Zwarte Piet carries on the stereotype of the
childish, naive black man from the colonial past. Nowadays, Pieten in
other colors also walk along with Sinterklaas, or some dark stripes on
the face indicate that it is soot, not black skin.
On a Saturday
in mid-November, Sinterklaas arrives in the Netherlands on a ship;
legend has it that he lives in Spain. This arrival takes place in a
different city every year and is a big event. Old and young fans line
the streets, invite people to play, there is a festival atmosphere. This
is also interesting for tourists, but the city in question is always
very busy.
The television accompanies the Sinterklaas parade, and
the Sinterklaasjournal also reports on Sinterklaas and the machinations
of the scatterbrained Zwarte Pieten during these weeks. There always
seems to be a danger that the presents for the children will be lost.
In Dutch families, the Sinterklaasfeest (St. Nicholas' Day) is
celebrated on pakjesavond (parcel evening), December 5 (the eve of
December 6, the saint's name day), rather than on December 6. The goed
heilig man (the good, holy man) comes to the front doors and scatters
pepernoten, gingerbread nuts, and other scatterings. This is a
diversionary tactic, because while the children are looking for the
sweets, the presents are being brought into another room. For Dutch
children, St. Nicholas Day is the most important day of the year and is
eagerly awaited weeks in advance. Christmas, on the other hand, is less
important for children in the Netherlands because it is more of a quiet
family celebration with a big feast, and presents are more of a
secondary concern. However, St. Nicholas Day is neither a public holiday
in the Netherlands nor does it fall during the school holidays, which is
why a second gift giving has often taken place at Christmas for several
years - many children in the Netherlands therefore receive two presents
in December, and more on December 5th than on Christmas.
Tourists
will rarely have the opportunity to be invited to a Dutch Sinterklaas
party. But it is good to know why you shouldn't make a spontaneous visit
to Dutch people on December 5th. You shouldn't be surprised if you are
bombarded with melodies in the shops during Sinterklaas that you know as
German folk and children's songs. They are used as Sinterklaas songs in
the Netherlands, for example Daar wordt aan de deur klopt (The melody of
Stupid Augustin) or Zie ginds komt de stoomboot uit Spanje weer aan (The
melody of the farmer in March). There are also special pastries and
sweets for Sinterklaas. Here are some recipes for them.
Similar to Germany, the Netherlands also has a regional distribution
of school holiday dates:
The North region includes the provinces
of Drenthe, Friesland, Groningen, Noord-Holland, Overijssel, Flevoland
(except Zeewolde) and the municipalities of Hattem, Eemnes and the
former municipality of Abcoude.
The Central region consists of
the provinces of Zuid-Holland, Utrecht (except Eemnes and Abcoude),
parts of the province of Gelderland and the municipalities of Zeewolde,
Werkendam (most of it) and Woudrichem.
The South region is made
up of the provinces of Limburg, Zeeland, Noord-Brabant (except
Woudrichem and small parts of the municipality of Werkendam) and parts
of the province of Gelderland.
In the Netherlands, the police, fire brigade, rescue services and emergency doctors all have a single emergency number, 112. The police can be reached for matters other than emergency calls, such as disturbances, contamination and to report damage to property, on the nationwide number 0900-8844.
Life in Dutch towns and communities is just as unsafe as in comparable German towns. The police are called politie, a police agent. There is also the Koninklijke Marechaussee: it supports the "normal" police and secures the borders and airports, among other things. It can be compared to the German Federal Police.
There are relatively few pharmacies in Dutch towns because Dutch
patients with health insurance have their own registered pharmacy. The
price of prescription drugs is lower than in Germany.
The Dutch
buy non-prescription drugs such as paracetamol in drugstores. Almost
every supermarket has a drugstore department. In the countryside, where
the density of pharmacies is even lower than in the city, family doctors
often also provide pharmacy services.
The symbol for pharmacies
is either a green, illuminated Greek cross or the poison bowl of Hygeia
with the Aesculapian snake.
The climate is influenced by the North Sea. This means mild winters
and mild summers. It rains frequently, but usually not for long periods.
In the southern province of Limburg it is usually much warmer.
The wind usually comes from the southwest. This is good to know when
planning a bike tour: with the wind at your back you can make much
faster progress than the other way around.
According to the Royal
Netherlands Meteorological Institute, the west of the Netherlands has
the most hours of sunshine. Source: (Subpage: Zon)
The Netherlands is home to both very conservative and very liberal
people, and all shades in between. Since the 1950s, the number of people
who were not born in the Netherlands itself has been growing. It would
be wrong to be guided by clichés that often only apply to big cities,
such as the hippie who ignores all conventions and takes drugs. It is
also not the case that homosexuals, for example, can live completely
carefree in every part of the Netherlands.
It is appropriate to
address strangers formally and use their last name, even if the person
you are talking to will probably immediately take you for granted and
use your first name. An agreement is usually not reached on this.
Tourists should not feel insulted or see this as a lack of respect, but
as typical behavior for the country. The same applies to the culture of
swearing: many Dutch people consider swearing to be natural and
harmless, although they mainly swear in reference to genitals and
diseases. However, there are also Dutch people, not just older people,
who would like better manners.
Tourists should be cautious when
it comes to religious topics: almost ten percent of the population are
strictly Protestant. Sunday rest is sacred to them, and in those
villages where they make up the majority of the population, they
practice it. Jokes about drug use and comments about the country being
very small or the language being ugly or "degenerate German" are also
unnecessary.
Of all the European countries, the Netherlands is
one of the few where knowledge of German is fairly widespread. However,
this does not mean that every Dutch person is fluent in German. It is
advisable to first establish a common language basis (German or English)
in English.
The Netherlands suffered greatly under the Nazi
occupation (1940-45). The famine winter of 1944/45 in particular left a
deep mark on the Dutch consciousness. Germans in the Netherlands must
expect to be confronted with anti-German attitudes. Some Dutch people
find it funny to give Germans the Hitler salute. It is also common to
attribute positive characteristics to one's own country and negative
characteristics to others (especially larger countries). Incidentally,
Dutch people often know that Hitler's Reich Commissioner in the
Netherlands, Arthur Seyß-Inquart, was Austrian.
Conversely, many
Dutch people react irritably when they are asked about the dark sides of
their own history (colonialism, slavery, etc.). Foreign visitors, for
their part, are alienated or even horrified when they see Zwarte Piet
during St. Nicholas' Day. This is traditionally a dark-skinned companion
(servant) of St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas); he is usually portrayed by
white people with black face paint, red lips and a curly wig. Following
criticism, since 2013 the face has been shown more often with soot
stains instead of dark skin; the figure is then also called Piet.
However, the jet-black Zwarte Pieten still exist, and anyone who openly
criticizes this tradition as racism must expect hostility.
After the privatization of the state-owned company PTT (Posterijen,
Telefonie, Telegrafie) in 1989 into three companies (PTT Post, PTT
Telecom and the Postbank, which had already been separated in 1986),
these became independent in 1998. The former PTT Telecom now continues
to operate as Koninklijke KPN NV and is still the leading service
provider in the telecom sector in the Netherlands.
PTT Post,
renamed TPG Post in 2002, was sold to the Australian postal company
Thomas Nationwide Transport in 2005. Since then, the company has been
called TNT Post. One of the most important measures - also for tourists
- is the disappearance of the post offices (postkantoren). They have
mostly moved to smaller premises and are now called TNT-postwinkel. As
with DPAG, in addition to the "normal" postal services, many things are
now sold that are otherwise available in stationery shops. The opening
hours have been extended to those of normal shops. Postal agencies
(postagentschappen) have been in cigar shops, stationery and bookstores
or drugstores for many years. They offer a limited range of services.
Post offices are usually open Mon - Fri 9am-5pm and Sat 9am-1pm. As
of 2018, postage for postcards and letters to other European countries
is €1.40 (up to 20 grams). Stamps are also available in many newsagents
and at the counters in the entrance area of larger supermarkets.
There are also other postal service providers. However, these do not
have an extensive branch network and are therefore of little interest to
travelers.
Attention! Dutch mailboxes are orange. Yellow boxes
are usually waste bins in the Netherlands.
There are three mobile
phone providers in the Netherlands: KPN, Vodafone, and T-Mobile; some
supermarket chains also sell SIM cards under their own brand. Sales are
completely unbureaucratic and no registration is necessary.
However, Dutch mobile phone tariffs are quite expensive and therefore
not really worth it, or only for tourists who cannot use EU roaming
(Swiss). It is worth comparing prices, as the offers from providers
differ greatly from one another, or some providers have hidden traps
that you only find out about in the small print. If you do not book a
package, every minute and every MB is billed individually by default!
In the Netherlands, there have been no roaming charges since June
15, 2017, provided you have a SIM card from an EU or EEA country.
The official name of the country in Dutch is Nederland. This is also
the name that is taken for granted in colloquial language for Dutch
people. In German, however, the country is called the Netherlands
(plural); in colloquial German people often - incorrectly - speak of
"Holland"; the inhabitants are therefore often referred to as "Dutch"
instead of "Netherlands". The name Holland refers to a former county in
the west of the Netherlands. The Kingdom of the Netherlands was founded
in 1815. Holland was initially a province until it was divided into the
provinces of Noord-Holland (capital Haarlem) and Zuid-Holland (capital
The Hague) in 1840.
In Dutch, the expression Holland or Dutch is
quite common when this is meant ironically or to emphasize Dutch folk
customs. In football, too, the self-designation Holland is used, for
example in the battle cry Hup Holland Hup. For tourism in the
Netherlands, the internationally more well-known Holland is usually used
in marketing in English, German and other languages. The tourism
industry's website can therefore be found at holland.com.
In
2019, the government and the economy decided that the country should
present itself as the Netherlands. There are fears that the term Holland
will be associated with clichés such as tulips and windmills, while the
country prefers to see itself as modern and cosmopolitan. There are also
plans to divert visitor flows to other areas and thus relieve the
pressure on the capital Amsterdam.
The country's name Netherlands
(in the plural) comes from the history of the Netherlands. At the end of
the Middle Ages, the Netherlands were part of the dominion of the House
of Burgundy. In the 15th century, under Charles the Bold, their lands
were divided into the Upper Lands (the Duchy and the Free County of
Burgundy and neighboring countries) and the Lower Lands (Flanders,
Artois with part of Picardy, Brabant, Holland, Luxembourg, etc.). In
1482, the Burgundian inheritance passed to the House of Habsburg. At
that time, its hereditary lands were divided into Lower, Inner and Upper
Austria (around Vienna, Graz and Innsbruck), the coastal lands (on the
Adriatic) and Upper Austria (in Swabia). This resulted in the fairly
consistent name (Burgundian or Habsburg) Netherlands (initially the
Spanish Netherlands, since 1714 the Austrian Netherlands). The
Burgundian Upper Land - the duchy around Dijon, which had always been
outside the borders of the empire, i.e. the former region of the same
name - was lost to France in 1493, as was the Free County around
Besançon, today's Franche-Comté, in 1678.
In Dutch, the
historical regions are also called de Lage Landen, i.e. the low-lying or
low-lying countries, since there are no mountains and only a few
elevations in the Netherlands. The northern Dutch provinces of the Union
of Utrecht (Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overijssel, Groningen
and Fryslân) declared themselves independent from the sovereign Philip
II of Spain on July 26, 1581. In the Peace of Münster as part of the
Peace of Westphalia negotiations in 1648, it achieved independence from
Spain and finally considered itself separate from the Holy Roman Empire;
the area roughly corresponded to the later Netherlands. The southern
part of the area, including Flanders, remained with the empire; later
the state of Belgium emerged from this. People then spoke of the
northern and southern Netherlands.
The Congress of Vienna united
the north and south once again for a short time as the independent
Kingdom of the United Netherlands. However, as early as 1830, the
southern Netherlands declared themselves independent under the name
Belgium. Belgica is the name of an old Roman province; since the
Renaissance, the term has been used as the Latin name for the
Netherlands, including its northern provinces.
In Middle Dutch,
the adjectives dietsc (corresponding to the German deutsch) referred to
the Dutch language. This gave rise to the English term Dutch.
Batavia is an earlier Latin name for what is now the Netherlands and
refers to the Germanic Batavian tribe who settled near the Rhine delta.
The Dutch also called the current capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, Batavia
during their colonial period.
The area of today's Netherlands, i.e. the westernmost part of the
North German Plain, has been inhabited since the last ice age at the
latest. In 2001, the remains of a Neanderthal, estimated to be perhaps
50,000 to 60,000 years old and known as Krijn, were discovered off the
coast of Zeeuws Vlaanderen in the province of Zeeland, i.e. in an area
that was only above sea level during the ice ages.
The best-known
remains from prehistoric times are the hunebedden (giant tombs), large,
stone grave monuments from the Neolithic period, in the province of
Drenthe.
From 50 BC, the Romans conquered the area of the southern
Netherlands and founded the first cities here (including Utrecht,
Nijmegen and Maastricht); the area became part of the Roman provinces of
Germania inferior and Belgica.
The Rhine formed the natural
border with the rest of Germania. The northern area of today's
Netherlands, the land of the Frisians and other tribes, therefore
remained outside the Roman Empire for most of the time.
From
around 290 AD, the Germanic Franks, coming from the southeast,
penetrated the area south of the Rhine, especially the Scheldt region.
The Romans tried several times, but in vain, to drive the Franks out. In
355, Julianus, later Emperor Julian, finally granted them an area south
of the Rhine - the Lower Frankish area of today's Netherlands,
Flanders and Germany - on the condition that they serve him as foederati
(allies).
After the fall of the Roman Empire, a period of unrest followed. The
Frisians lived on the coast, the Saxons in the east and the Franks in
the south.
In 486 AD, the Franks defeated their Roman neighbors
under Syagrius and under Clovis expanded their empire southwards to the
Loire. The core area of the Frankish Empire was in the areas along the
Rhine, Meuse and Moselle in what is now Belgium, northern France and the
Rhineland. Around 700, the Franks also subjugated their Frisian
neighbors. In the period around 800, Charlemagne made Aachen his main
residence, defeated the Saxons who lived in what is now Lower Saxony and
the eastern Netherlands, had their sanctuaries destroyed and their
leaders murdered. After the conquest, Friesland and Saxony were
Christianized.
The Frankish Empire was divided between the sons of Louis the Pious
after the death of Charlemagne's son, Louis the Pious. In the Treaty of
Verdun in 843, Lothar I received the Middle Kingdom. After the Prüm
division of the Middle Kingdom in 855 under Lothar II, in the Treaty of
Meerssen in 870 and in the Treaty of Ribemont in 880, Lotharingia became
part of the eastern part of the Frankish Empire, the later Holy Roman
Empire.
The eastern Frankish Empire, the land of the German
language (lingua Teutonica), did not remain a political unit. Local
vassals, rulers of counties and duchies, strengthened their power over
the emperor. The area of today's Netherlands was divided between
various noble estates, the Count of Holland, the Duke of Guelders and
the Duke of Brabant, as well as the Bishop of Utrecht. In Friesland and
Groningen in the north, however, the lower nobility ruled.
In 1384, through marriage, Flanders and the cities of Antwerp and
Mechelen came into the possession of Philip the Bold of Burgundy. In the
following years, Burgundy acquired Holland (1428), Namur (1429), Brabant
and Limburg (1430). From then on, the Netherlands formed the northern
part of this state. From then on, they were called the "Low Countries"
of the House of Burgundy in contrast to the French homeland, Burgundy.
Under Philip the Good (1419–1467), the loose territories were more
institutionally integrated. The Duke countered the resistance of the
Estates to the centralization policy by regularly calling together a
general representation of his Dutch territories. From 1478 onwards,
these were called the Estates General. However, the political and
economic focus was still in the south of the country, in Flanders and
Brabant. The court language was also French. The northern Netherlands
lagged behind in comparison. The south consisted of an urban landscape
that was outstanding at the time. Around 1500, Ghent and Antwerp had
more than 40,000 inhabitants, Bruges and Brussels over 30,000
inhabitants, while the four leading Dutch cities of Leiden, Amsterdam,
Haarlem and Delft each had no more than 15,000 inhabitants. Accordingly,
the large Flemish cities offered the strongest resistance to integration
into the Burgundian state. Interventions by the ducal bailiff in the
city's powers led to the Bruges Revolt of 1436 to 1438, which ended with
the punishment of Bruges.
Charles the Bold (1467–1477), the son
and successor of Philip the Good, wanted to realize his father's dream
of an independent kingdom of Burgundy between France and the Holy Roman
Empire. Charles pursued an anti-French policy, which included his
marriage to Margaret of York, the sister of the English king in 1468.
Although the conquest of Lorraine, an imperial fief, opened up a
connection between his Burgundian and Dutch territories, Charles failed
in all aspects of foreign policy. After the unsuccessful siege of Neuss
(1474/75) and the heavy defeats against the Swiss cantons at Grandson
and Murten in 1476, he fell on the battlefield on January 5, 1477,
during an attempt to recapture the Lorraine capital Nancy.
Due to
the loss of Lorraine and the French occupation of Burgundy and Picardy,
the focus of the Burgundian Empire shifted to the Netherlands. The
beneficiary of Charles' catastrophe was not only France but also
Maximilian of Habsburg (1508-1519), who succeeded in the War of the
Burgundian Succession (1477-1493) - as enshrined in the Treaty of Senlis
(23 May 1493) - in asserting Flanders and the other Dutch provinces,
Artois, the County of Charolais, the County of Noyers and the Free
County of Burgundy, which had previously been promised to the French
crown in the Treaty of Arras as a dowry for his daughter Margaret,
against France.
Through the marriage of the future Emperor
Maximilian to the Duke's daughter Mary of Burgundy and her early death,
the Netherlands came into the possession of the Habsburg dynasty, which
ruled in the southern Netherlands until 1794. For the Netherlands, being
anchored in the emerging Habsburg Empire, on which the sun never set,
was initially of little importance. Mary of Burgundy and Maximilian of
Habsburg initially had to defend their rule against centrifugal forces
in the province. Mary was able to appease the opposition of the cities
of Bruges, Ghent, Ypres, Brussels, Antwerp, Maastricht, etc. only
through the Great Privilege of 1477. This privilege gave the
representatives of the provinces, from now on called the States General,
the right to meet whenever necessary. In addition, wars were no longer
allowed and taxes were no longer to be levied without the consent of the
Estates. Even after Mary's death, the political revolt of the Estates of
the Flemish and Brabant cities continued. After Maximilian was
temporarily held prisoner by the Flemish cities in Bruges, Maximilian
gained the upper hand as the conflict continued. The capitulation of
Ghent in 1492 ended the rebellion. However, in the Netherlands that had
not yet become Habsburg, such as Friesland and Guelders, the rebellion
continued to simmer. Only Charles V was able to incorporate Tournai
(1521), Friesland (1524), Overijssel and Utrecht (1528), Drenthe,
Groningen and the Ommelande (1536) as well as Gelderland and Zutphen
(1543) into the Netherlands, thus uniting the Seventeen Provinces for
the first time and for a short time in one state.
The age of the Reformation, triggered by Martin Luther, had dawned,
and parts of the population in the Low Countries were also converting to
Protestantism. Charles V and his son and successor Philip II of Spain,
both devout Catholics, persecuted the Protestants and attempted to
re-Catholicize them. The first victims were the Augustinian monks
Hendrik Vos and Johannes van Esschen, who were burned at the stake in
the market square in Brussels in 1523. The imperial policy of repression
initially prevented Protestant community structures from developing in
the Netherlands. Protestantism in the Netherlands thus remained an
underground religion that was subject to many influences. The relentless
persecution of heretics in the Netherlands repeatedly set in motion
streams of refugees to England and Germany. Dutch exile communities
emerged there, which came under Zwinglian-Calvinist influence. In the
1550s, these refugee centers developed into centers of invasion of
Calvinism into the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, Calvinism offered
the various Protestant groups a worldview that was clearly distinct from
that of Catholicism. Its spread was also specifically promoted and
controlled by Calvin from Geneva. By creating organizational structures
and disseminating the Confessio Belgica (1561) written by Guy de Bray
(1522–1567) as a binding doctrine, the Calvinists became the dominant
Protestant force and thus also the political and confessional
alternative to the Catholics and the Catholic occupation regime of the
Spaniards. Despite their small number, the government persecuted the
Calvinists relentlessly. To this end, new dioceses were created
alongside the existing dioceses, which, equipped with two inquisitors,
hunted down suspected heretics. The urge for unhindered religious
practice was ultimately also a reason that led to the Dutch Revolt
against Spanish rule. The period on the eve of the uprising was marked
by the attempt by Philip II (1555–1598) to intensify his rule and by the
latent resistance of the nobility and the cities to this policy. In
addition to rejecting the increasing Hispanization of the Brussels
court, the nobility and the cities rejected religious persecution. Most
cities were not prepared to persecute and execute heretics because this
would disrupt public order. In addition, the heavy financial burden on
the Dutch since the wars of Charles V, which had recently been increased
by the Habsburg conflicts with France, contributed significantly to the
conflict. The population of the cities was burdened with consumption
taxes on wine and beer, a value added tax on trade turnover and, above
all, compulsory loans.
In April 1566, the nobility petitioned for
the final suspension of the persecution of heretics and a new regulation
of the open religious question. The religious tensions erupt in an
iconoclasm in September. In many cities in Flanders and Brabant,
monasteries and churches were destroyed. The Catholic service was
stopped. Under the pressure of events, the governor Margaret of Parma
initially showed herself willing to compromise and tolerated the
Protestant sermon. In return, she received the support of the high
nobility, who, under the leadership of William of Orange, tried to
prevent the worst outbreaks of violence - such as the murder of the
clergy of Gorkum in 1572. King Philip II sent Duke Alba (1507-1582) into
the country with an army, a blood court and a more severe Inquisition.
All concessions were reversed. Alba's uncompromising approach also drove
the previously moderate forces into revolt. William I of Orange,
actually Philip's governor in the counties of Holland, Zeeland and
Utrecht, took over the leadership of the rebels. However, given the
military successes of the Spaniards, only the Geuzen succeeded in
wresting some cities in Holland and Zeeland from Spanish rule and
maintaining them as permanent bases.
The longer the war dragged
on, the more important the center of the rebels, intent on
reconciliation, became. A mutiny by the Spanish troops and the death of
the governor Don Luis Requesens (1573–1576), created a power vacuum. The
States General pushed for peace and achieved this in 1576 in the Ghent
Pacification. According to this agreement, the breakaway provinces of
Holland and Zeeland were to return to the union of the 17 Dutch
provinces and keep peace with them, while the foreign troops were to be
driven out of the country. Peace thus seemed within reach. In 1577, the
States General persuaded the new governor Don Juan (1576–1578), the
king's half-brother, to withdraw the Spanish troops. But after the
Spanish concluded a peace agreement with the Ottoman Sultan and the
American silver fleet landed enough precious metals to finance the war,
the governor Don Juan resumed the fight against the Protestant
provinces. The fight ended with the defeat of the States General in the
Battle of Gembloux (1578) and finally initiated the division of the 17
provinces.
In January 1579, the Walloon provinces united to form
the Union of Arras and concluded a separate peace with the Spanish king.
Almost at the same time, the seven Dutch provinces (Holland, Zeeland,
Groningen, Utrecht, Friesland, Gelderland and Overijssel) united to form
the Union of Utrecht, founded the Republic of the Seven United Provinces
in 1581 and deposed the Spanish king as sovereign. This initiated the
division of the country.
In the core provinces of Flanders and
Brabant, Calvinist forces had taken control of the cities of Ghent,
Bruges, Ypres, Antwerp and Brussels and banned the practice of the
Catholic faith. By 1585, however, these cities had been conquered by
Spanish troops under Alessandro Farnese, thus forming the borders
between the north and south of the Netherlands. Attempts by the House of
Orange to regain Antwerp failed. The status quo remained untouched since
the end of the 16th century. On May 15, 1648, the actual birth and
independence of the United Provinces of the Netherlands came with the
Peace of Münster as part of the Peace of Westphalia negotiations.
The Netherlands emerged from the Eighty Years' War as a major power
and leading trading nation. This was preceded by fundamental upheavals
in the European power system. The economic and political center shifted
from the south of Europe to the North Sea and the Atlantic. Against this
backdrop, the Netherlands experienced a change in economy, society and
art.
By the middle of the 17th century, the Dutch had by far the
largest merchant fleet in Europe, with more ships than all other nations
combined. Trade with the Baltic region was considered the
"moedercommercie", the mother of the Dutch economy: the Dutch
transported Baltic grain and Scandinavian wood to England, France and
Spain, and from there wine, salt and herring to the Baltic countries.
The Dutch were almost unrivaled after a shipbuilder from Hoorn developed
the flute in 1595, a cargo ship that, thanks to its simple sail
construction, could manage with a smaller crew.
The next step on
the road to economic dominance was the conquest of the international
spice trade, which had previously been in the hands of the Portuguese.
From 1595 onwards, Dutch trading companies had equipped naval units for
the Southeast Asian spice islands (now Indonesia). In 1602, these
trading companies merged to form the United East India Company (VOC),
the first joint-stock company in history. It was able to activate far
more capital than the Portuguese crown and therefore conquered almost
all Portuguese trading bases in Southeast Asia within a few decades.
Following the example of the VOC, the West India Company was founded in
1621. It rose to become the world's largest slave trader for a time, but
was less successful overall. Important institutions for promoting Dutch
trade were the Amsterdam Exchange Bank, founded in 1609, the first large
public bank outside Italy, and the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, which had
been based in its own representative building since 1611. "The Dutch can
claim more than most other nations to have invented globalization - with
all the excesses that come with it."
In addition to trade, the
Dutch economy was also based on the other two economic sectors, for
example herring fishing, whaling and beer brewing. The city of Leiden
was considered the most important European location for the textile
industry; the flourishing agriculture was glorified in paintings by
Paulus Potter and Albert Cuyp. Painting provided a living for around 700
professional painters. Many Dutch people enjoyed a certain level of
prosperity at that time; the 17th century was later called the Golden
Age (gouden eeuw) in Dutch historiography.
The Republic was ruled
by a patriciate (regents) - consisting of wealthy citizens and nobles
who migrated to the cities in the late Middle Ages - and not by a king
or high nobles. The most influential among them were the regents of
Amsterdam, thanks to the economically and socially prominent position of
their city of Amsterdam and the province of Holland. This meant that the
Netherlands took a different path than the absolutist-ruled southern
Netherlands. In principle, each city and each province had its own
government and laws and was ruled by related regents. The cities and
districts were largely independent; in contrast, the southern, Catholic
areas such as Brabant and Limburg were under central authority. The
Republic retained this aristocratic-bourgeois and federal system, even
if it seemed old-fashioned in the 17th century compared to the growing
power of the absolutist states. This union of states worked well and was
able to cope with the challenges of the European wars of the time.
Nevertheless, the 17th century also saw internal political tensions. The
stadtholders, who had a great deal of power, especially in times of war,
had voted for the continuation of the conflict during the Eighty Years'
War. In 1648, William II opposed the conclusion of the Peace of Münster
with Spain by Andries Bicker and Cornelis de Graeff, and in secret
negotiations with France tried to place his territory under a central
government. To this end, he resorted to the means of a coup d'état in
1650. When he died unexpectedly in 1650 after only three years in power
and had no successor (his son Willem, the later King of England, was not
born until after his death), the Estates General seized the opportunity
and, under the leadership of Johan de Witt, Gaspar Fagel, Gillis
Valckenier and Andries de Graeff, abolished the function of stadtholder.
The Eeuwig edict (Century Decree; literally: Eternal Decree) included
the overthrow of the House of Orange-Nassau. This period would later be
called het Eerste Stadhouderloos Tijdperk – the first stadtholderless
period. During this period, Johan de Witt, pensionary of Holland, was
the most influential Dutch politician. With the help of his powerful
relatives, he dominated the Dutch government apparatus.
The Netherlands, which had risen from the power vacuum of the early
17th century to become a major power, had to defend this position in the
second half of the 17th century against the growing strength of England
and France, which were contesting Dutch supremacy. The first threat came
from England. In 1651, the English Parliament imposed the Navigation
Act, a law aimed at Dutch middlemen without explicitly mentioning the
Netherlands. The law stipulated that imported goods could only be
brought to England by ships from the country of origin of the goods.
However, the Dutch mainly shipped goods from third countries. The fight
over the act ended in the First Anglo-Dutch War, which lasted from 1652
to 1654 and, after an unfavorable outcome for the Dutch fleet under
Admiral Maarten Tromp, ended in the Peace of Westminster, in which the
Navigation Act had to be recognized. However, this peace agreement did
not settle the trade disputes between the two nations. Hostilities
continued, particularly in the extensive overseas colonies, between the
English and Dutch trading companies, which had their own troops and
warships. The Dutch launched a major shipbuilding program to compensate
for the disadvantage in ships of the line that they had felt in the
naval battles of Kentish Knock, Gabbard and Scheveningen.
In 1665
the English declared war on the Dutch again (Second Anglo-Dutch War).
They had already attacked Dutch settlements in New Netherlands. With the
support of the French (who had meanwhile invaded the Spanish Netherlands
- now Belgium), the Dutch gained the upper hand. After the Dutch Admiral
Michiel de Ruyter had destroyed a large part of the English fleet on the
Thames, the English and Dutch concluded the Peace of Breda in 1667. The
war had been ended by the United Netherlands at a time when they were in
the most advantageous position because political developments in the
Spanish Netherlands forced them to do so. The peace treaty was therefore
a compromise. The English war aim of destroying Dutch trade and taking
part of it for themselves had failed. However, the fact that the
Netherlands had withdrawn from North America and England had withdrawn
from Suriname and Indonesia led to a real relaxation of tension. The
United Netherlands remained the leading supplier of nutmeg and received
a new colony in Dutch Guiana. The Navigation Act was also modified in
the Netherlands' favor. However, the Dutch side's moderation did not
prevent the next war with England, which began a few years later.
1672 is known in the Netherlands as the Rampjaar, the year of
catastrophe: one after the other, England (Third Anglo-Dutch War),
France, Münster and the Electorate of Cologne, which had formed an
alliance against the Netherlands, declared war on the Republic (Dutch
War). France, the Electorate of Cologne and Münster marched into the
Republic, while the English landing on the coast was only narrowly
prevented.
This was preceded by a diplomatic change in the
relationship between the Netherlands and France. After France had long
supported the Netherlands in the fight against Spain, the two powers
finally entered into a defensive alliance in 1662. Louis XIV was keen to
obtain the support of the United Netherlands for a conquest of the
Spanish Netherlands and therefore initiated negotiations. In the States
General, there was a fear that England and France would join forces if
the French offers were not accepted. The influential Dutch pensionary
Johan de Witt (1625–1672) proposed dividing up the Spanish Netherlands
together. Such plans had been discussed since 1663. But the share that
Louis XIV demanded for himself put de Witt off and the treaty was never
concluded. In 1667/68, the French King Louis XIV single-handedly led the
so-called War of Devolution against Spain in order to conquer parts of
the Spanish Netherlands. The French troops operated so successfully that
in January 1668 a coalition of England, Sweden and the Netherlands, the
so-called Triple Alliance, was formed, which threatened France with a
joint declaration of war if it did not stop the conquest. The rapid
French advance had greatly worried the United Netherlands. Although they
were actually enemies of the Spanish monarchy, "an inactive and tired
Spain was a better neighbor for them than a powerful and aggressive
France." They wanted to keep the Spanish Netherlands as a kind of
"buffer state" at all costs. King Louis XIV was then forced to
reluctantly sign the Peace of Aachen on May 2, 1668. Since the French
king held the United Netherlands responsible for the formation of the
Triple Alliance and felt personally betrayed by his former ally, his
policy in the following years was directed primarily against them.
The French advanced almost unhindered through Liège and Cleves into
Gelderland and took Utrecht. William III of Orange, appointed Captain
General at the beginning of the war, was only able to prevent a complete
defeat by deliberately opening locks and dams in order to flood the
country and stop the French advance. Holland's formerly all-powerful
pensioner Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis were lynched by a crowd
in The Hague incited by Orange partisans. With the help of other German
states, the Dutch were able to drive back the invaders, and peace was
made with the Electorate of Cologne and Münster in 1674, after England
also agreed to peace after several defeats in the Second Peace of
Westminster. In 1678, peace was also made with France with the Treaty of
Nijmegen, although the Spanish and German allies felt betrayed by the
peace signed in Nijmegen.
William III not only ended the war, but
also married Mary, a niece of the English king, in 1677, thus initiating
a Dutch-English defensive alliance. When his father-in-law James II
(1685–1688), who had since been crowned king, pushed for the
re-Catholicization of England, the English Parliament called on William
III for help and offered him the royal crown in the Glorious Revolution.
From then on, England and the Netherlands became the center of the
anti-French coalitions.
During the Peace of Nijmegen (1678) and
the Peace of Rijswijk (1697), which ended the Nine Years' War, Dutch
foreign policy reached its peak.
The Dutch Republic emerged from
the War of the Spanish Succession (1700–1713) as a medium-sized power
that had to limit itself to preserving what it had. Although the
Netherlands bore the brunt of the financial burden and the Dutch troops
bore a significant part of the losses, it became clear that the
Netherlands was too small to play the role of a naval or land power in
the long term. Economically, the Netherlands lost some of the foreign
markets for its products. Internally, a political power vacuum gave the
particular powers a boost. The 18th century is often described as the
time of stagnation or the political and economic decline of the
Republic. By pursuing a strict neutrality policy, it managed to stay out
of most of the conflicts of the 18th century.
The mutiny on the
Nijenburg occurred in 1763.
At the end of the 18th century, unrest grew in the Netherlands.
Fights broke out between the Orangists, who wanted to give William V of
Orange more power, and the republican movement Patriotten (German:
Patriots), who demanded a more democratic government under the influence
of the American and French Revolutions. The Netherlands was the first
country to recognize the United States of America. Britain declared war
before the country could join the group of neutrals who swore mutual
support. The Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780-1784) was again a disaster for
the Netherlands, especially economically. In 1785, a revolt by the
republican movement Patriotten flared up. The House of Orange-Nassau
then called on its Prussian relatives to help put down the revolt. This
happened with the invasion of Prussian troops in 1787. Many members of
the republican movement Patriotten fled the country to France.
After the French Revolution, the French army marched into the
Netherlands and helped the Batavian Republic (1795-1806) to its brief
existence. French influence was strong, and after Napoleon came to
power, he united the Netherlands and a small part of Germany (East
Frisia, Jever) under the Kingdom of Holland, which he had his brother
Louis Bonaparte rule as king. This kingdom did not last long either, as
Napoleon complained that his brother put Dutch interests before French
ones, whereupon he incorporated the Netherlands into the French Empire
in 1810. French interests required the Kingdom of Holland to participate
in the Continental Blockade, but this was often circumvented by
smuggling in the Netherlands as well as in other coastal areas.
In 1796, the House of Orange-Nassau concluded a treaty with Great
Britain in which it handed over its colonies to Britain in "protective
custody" and instructed the governors of the colonies to submit to
British rule. As a result, the Netherlands lost a large part of its
colonial empire: Guyana and Ceylon became British; the Cape Colony was
returned to the Netherlands on paper, but in 1806 it was taken over
again, this time for good, by the British. The remaining colonies,
including Indonesia, reverted to the Netherlands after the British-Dutch
Treaty of 1814. Three years earlier, the two nations had been at war
over the island of Java.
After the Napoleonic era, the Netherlands returned to the map of
Europe as a state. The country has always played a role as a buffer to
stop French expansionism. The Russian Tsar in particular wanted the
Netherlands to resume this role and also to return the colonies. A
compromise was reached with the British at the Congress of Vienna in
1815, according to which only the Dutch East Indies were returned, but
the north and south of the Netherlands were to be reunited.
On
December 2, 1813, the Netherlands proclaimed its independence from
French rule and William Frederick, Prince of Orange-Nassau, who returned
on November 30, as sovereign prince. He was the son of the last
stadtholder William V. The country became a monarchy in 1814/15. The
Orange Prince became king as William I. Since 1815, his Kingdom of the
United Netherlands consisted of the countries that today form the
Netherlands and Belgium; Luxembourg was added, whose Grand Duke was
William.
Many Belgians felt they were second-class subjects for
the following reasons:
Religion: the predominantly Catholic south
versus the predominantly Protestant north;
Economy: the south was
more industrially advanced, the north was traditionally a trading
nation;
Language: not only Wallonia was French-speaking, the upper
class in the Flemish north also spoke French, while the rest of the
Flemish population spoke Dutch or a Dutch dialect.
In 1830 the
situation escalated; the south rose up in the Belgian Revolution and
declared itself independent from the north. William sent an army, but it
had to withdraw after just a few days after France had mobilized its
army. However, he did not recognize Belgium until 1839.
In 1848, unrest broke out in many places in Europe. The result was
also significant in the Netherlands. The liberal constitutional lawyer
Johan Rudolf Thorbecke was commissioned by the king to reform the Dutch
constitution. The introduction of ministerial responsibility - or more
precisely, the government's duty to provide information to parliament -
made the parliamentary system that was later established possible.
Parliamentarism - de facto, parliament selects the members of the
government - was finally established in 1866/68.
When the
constitution was amended in 1848, Catholics in the Netherlands were
given the right to free church organization. In 1853, the historical
Catholic dioceses were restored.
At the end of the 19th century,
when many states claimed colonies for themselves, the Netherlands
expanded its possessions in the Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia).
Max Havelaar by Eduard Douwes Dekker, one of the most famous books in
Dutch literary history, reports on the exploitation of the country and
its inhabitants by Dutch and local rulers.
After a constitutional
amendment in 1884, the right to vote was expanded. In 1917, another
constitutional amendment gave all men the right to vote. At the same
time, the majority voting system in single-member constituencies was
replaced by a list system with proportional representation. The first
election under these new conditions took place on July 3, 1918. On July
5, 1922, women were also allowed to vote for the first time.
After the First World War broke out in August 1914, the Netherlands
managed to maintain neutrality with difficulty. It was not occupied like
Belgium. The Netherlands was surrounded by Germany on land, and the
Royal Navy ruled the North Sea. Germany's invasion of Belgium, which was
also neutral, led to a wave of refugees of several hundred thousand
people to the Netherlands, of whom 100,000 remained in the country
permanently. The German occupying forces in Belgium erected deadly
electric fences on the border with the Netherlands from 1915 onwards.
The Netherlands were in a difficult situation: deliveries of goods to
one party were easily seen by the other as a violation of neutrality.
Also because civilian shipping on the North Sea had become unsafe, many
foodstuffs were in short supply and could only be issued in exchange for
ration cards. An error in the food allocation caused the so-called
Aardappeloproer (potato riot) in Amsterdam (28 June to 5 July 1917),
when civilians plundered food supplies for soldiers. The country offered
refuge to thousands of French, English, German and also some Russian
prisoners of war who had fled the combat zone.
Interwar period
In November 1918, the leader of the Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiders
Partij (SDAP, Social Democratic Workers' Party), Pieter Jelles
Troelstra, called for a socialist revolution, which failed and excluded
the socialists from political participation for a long time. Despite the
introduction of proportional representation, relatively little changed
in political life: the religious parties continued to dominate. It was
seen as significant news that the first Catholic became prime minister
in 1918. The socialists first came into government in 1939.
Communists (Communistische Partij van Holland) and National Socialists
(Nationaalsocialistische Beweging) remained weak in international
comparison.
After the National Socialists seized power in
neighboring Germany, around 50,000 people persecuted for political
reasons or as Jews fled to the Netherlands between 1933 and 1939. About
half of them stayed there.
After the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 and the
subsequent declarations of war by Great Britain and France to Germany,
the neutral Netherlands had hoped not to be drawn into the war, as in
the First World War. Since Hitler came to power, the governments of the
Netherlands had expressed some sympathy for the aggressive German
foreign policy, because they, too, had found the provisions of the
Treaty of Versailles to be too harsh on Germany. They had focused on
expanding economic relations and maintaining good relations with the
German Reich. In the 1930s, the Netherlands had repeatedly made
statements that it wanted to behave neutrally in a conflict and expected
potentially belligerent parties to respect this attitude. The Dutch were
apparently unaware that warfare between states had changed as a result
of modern air warfare. The Dutch territory was a possible base for air
strikes against the other state for both Great Britain and Germany.
On November 7, 1939, Queen Wilhelmina, together with Leopold the
Third of Belgium, had made the proposal of a peace mediation, which
Great Britain and France had not taken seriously. Germany even
considered him disturbing, because at the same time as the planned
attack against France and England, Hitler had already initiated the
associated raid on the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg as "Fall
Gelb" for the first time on October 13, 1939.
On May 10, 1940,
the Wehrmacht invaded the Netherlands and Belgium and occupied most of
the Netherlands in a few days. The small and poorly equipped Dutch army
could offer little resistance. A German plan to arrest the Dutch
government, the commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Henri Winkelman
and Queen Wilhelmina in a commando action failed. The Dutch government,
fearing defeat, sent a letter to the president of the Republic as early
as May 10. May the Dutch Foreign Minister Eelco van Kleffens and the
Colonial Minister Charles Welter on behalf of the Prime Minister to
London to prepare the exile of the royal house and the government. On
May 13, the royal family and the rest of the government emigrated. The
executive command had previously been transferred to General Henri
Winkelman.
On May 14, there were only a few theaters of war left,
including near Rotterdam. The Wehrmacht leadership decided to force the
surrender of the Netherlands with an air attack on Rotterdam. The
bombers took off even during the negotiations between a Dutch and German
delegation on the termination of combat operations. By the time the
Dutch negotiating delegation agreed, it was already too late to order
the bomber pilots to abort the attack. 800 people died in the attack.
25,000 homes were destroyed and 78,000 residents became homeless. After
that, the Netherlands surrendered. A Dutch government in exile was
formed in Great Britain under Pieter Gerbrandy, who replaced his
predecessor Dirk Jan de Geer in September 1940. Without the control of
the Dutch parliament, Wilhelmina's influence on government affairs
increased. Just one day after the start of her exile in London, she sent
a proclamation to her people via the official government radio Oranje,
in which she called on the Dutch to continue resisting the occupying
power and expressed her conviction that the country would soon be
liberated again. In the absence of parliamentary legitimacy, it was not
possible for the government-in-exile to pass actual laws. Instead, only
royal decrees, the so-called wetsbesluiten (literally: "legal acts"),
were issued, which dealt primarily with the resistance against Germany
and the waging of war against Japan in Asia, as well as with the
reconstruction of society after the liberation of the Netherlands. The
most important decisions were usually signed by the Queen and all the
ministers.
General Friedrich Christiansen was the
Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht in the occupied Netherlands from May
29, 1940 to April 7, 1945, and from November 10, 1944 to January 28,
1945, he was also the commander-in-chief of the 25th Army deployed
there. Christiansen was taken prisoner after the war and in August 1948
was sentenced to 12 years in prison by a special court in Arnhem in the
criminal case Putten for a war crime (burning down a village and
deportation of 602 men). He was pardoned in December 1951.
On May 18, 1940, Hitler appointed Arthur Seyß-Inquart as Reich
Commissioner for the Netherlands. He introduced a domestic labor
requirement to have the civilian population build military structures
such as the Atlantic Wall (contrary to the Hague Conventions on Land
Warfare). Around 475,000 Dutch people were sent to the German Reich for
forced labor and were viewed as collaborators when they returned home.
With the Dutch bureaucracy, he organized the exclusion, concentration,
confiscation of assets (Aryanization for the benefit of German banks and
corporations) and deportation of racially persecuted Jews, Sinti and
Roma as part of the Final Solution.
At the beginning of the war,
160,000 people of Jewish descent lived in the Netherlands, including
20,000 Jewish refugees who had immigrated from neighboring countries.
From 1942 onwards, the Westerbork transit camp, built in 1939, was used
by the German occupiers as a concentration camp (collection and transit
camp), mainly for further transport to the Auschwitz extermination camp.
Other camps on Dutch soil were the Amersfoort transit camp, built in
1941, and the Vught concentration camp south of 's-Hertogenbosch. In
Doetinchem and Barneveld, the Villa Bouchina, De Schaffelaar and De
Biezen were used as internment camps, partly with Dutch collaboration.
At the end of the war, only about 30,000 of the Dutch Jews were still
alive.
Among those murdered was the Jewish refugee girl Anne
Frank from Frankfurt am Main; the "Diary of Anne Frank" later became
known worldwide. With 112,000 murdered, around 75 percent of Dutch Jews
died, a much higher percentage than in other Western European countries.
The belongings they left behind were taken to the Reich during the
M-Aktion; art collections and entire libraries such as the Bibliotheca
Rosenthaliana and the library of the Sephardic Jewish community were
also taken.
On February 22 and 23, 1941, after the first
large-scale raid, more than 400 Jewish men were deported to the
Mauthausen concentration camp. The Dutch communists then called a
general strike, which went down in history as the "February strike". The
occupying forces bloodily suppressed the strike, which took place
throughout North Holland.
In July 1940, three men, including the
later Prime Minister Jan de Quay, founded a Nederlandse Unie. It
accepted the occupation as an unchangeable fact and promised to
cooperate with the occupiers, but was also intended to prevent any
influx into the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging (NSB). In 1941,
however, the Unie was banned because it attracted anti-German
sentiments. It was unable to fulfil its self-imposed role as a balancing
force. Out of caution, it had "recommended" Jews not to become members.
After the war, it was also accused of collaboration and defeatism.
After all parties were banned in 1941, the influence of the NSB
increased slightly. Government power remained in the hands of the
occupiers, but popularity among the population was very limited. But the
willingness to actively resist was also limited. Historian Chris van der
Heijden wrote in 2001 that after the war there was a widespread division
into a good resistant majority and a small collaborating minority; in
fact, it was a "grey past". Most Dutch people had to come to terms with
the occupiers in one way or another.
The Allies landed in Normandy in Operation Overlord on 6 June 1944.
The Battle of Caen ended on 15 August, and the Battle of Paris on 25
August. After that, troops advanced very quickly towards the Dutch
border. This was made possible by complex logistics (see Red Ball
Express).
Brussels was liberated on 3 September, Antwerp a day
later. On 4 September, Prime Minister Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy gave a
speech on Radio Oranje and announced that the Allies had crossed the
border and that the hour of liberation had now come. Rotterdam was
expected to be taken on 5 September, Utrecht and Amsterdam on 6
September, and the rest of the country to be liberated soon after.
Many Dutch people prepared to receive the Allies and left their
workplaces; the streets filled with the expectant population. Many
German occupiers and members of the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging
(NSB) panicked; documents were hastily destroyed, and more than 30,000
NSB members fled the Netherlands to German territory with their
families. This day went down in history as Dolle Dinsdag (Great, Crazy
Tuesday).
On September 17, the Allies launched the daring
Operation Market Garden: a rapid invasion of the southern Netherlands to
capture bridges over the three main rivers with airborne troops. The
Arnhem Bridge over the Rhine could not be captured, however; the
operation ended in defeat and heavy casualties. This military failure
was later made into a film called The Bridge at Arnhem.
In the
winter of 1944/45, which was particularly cold, wet and long, many Dutch
people, including many city dwellers, had to go hungry and freeze in the
still occupied area; it went down in the collective memory of the
Netherlands as the "Hongerwinter" (Hunger Winter). Around 20,000 people
starved to death. Older accounts suggested that 200,000 people died of
starvation; this figure was refuted in 1999 by historian David Barnouw.
On May 5, 1945, the Wehrmacht surrendered at Wageningen; this date
is celebrated as Bevrijdingsdag (Liberation Day). On May 4, 1945, a
German negotiating delegation led by Hans-Georg von Friedeburg had
already signed the Wehrmacht's partial surrender for northwest Germany,
Denmark and the Netherlands to British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery
at the tactical headquarters of the British troops on the Timeloberg
near Wendisch Evern near Lüneburg, which came into force on May 5 at
8:00 a.m.
After the capitulation of the European Netherlands in May 1940,
colonial governor Tjarda van Starkenborgh began implementing measures to
secure the colony. Among other things, this led to the arrest of around
2,800 people who were considered a risk and taken to internment camps.
In addition to "Aryan" German citizens, these included NSB members,
citizens of other European countries such as Poland, Hungary and
Yugoslavia, and also Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. The
property of those affected was confiscated.
After the Dutch
government in exile declared war on Japan, the Japanese invasion of the
Dutch East Indies began on January 11, 1942. The Dutch armed forces in
the region were attached to the multinational ABDACOM unit founded on
January 8, 1942 under the command of British Field Marshal Sir Archibald
Wavell. The Dutch Lieutenant General Hein ter Poorten was given command
of the ABDACOM land forces. ABDACOM was in a rather unpromising
situation from the start, and the fleet under the command of Rear
Admiral Karel Doorman was badly defeated in the Battle of the Java Sea,
and Doorman himself was killed. On February 28, 1942, the Japanese
landed on Java and began to take the last island in the region still
controlled by the Dutch. The Dutch surrendered just a few days later on
March 9.
During the occupation that followed, the Japanese
divided the colony's population into different groups according to their
ethnic origins. Dutch residents were captured and interned in labor
camps. Some of the prisoners were used for forced labor in the extremely
dangerous construction of the Thailand-Burma railway, which is also
known in Dutch as the Dodenspoorlijn (roughly: "Death Railway"). It is
estimated that around 13,000 people died in the camps and during forced
labor.
With the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945, the Second
World War also ended here. This was soon followed by the Indonesian War
of Independence, which ended in 1949 with Indonesian independence.
Queen Wilhelmina, a symbol of resistance against the German
occupiers, abdicated in 1948 after a fifty-year reign in favour of her
daughter Juliana. During the occupation, Wilhelmina's absolutist
tendencies had increased (she wanted to choose the ministers herself),
but she was unable to enforce them after returning to her country. In
September 1944, Gerbrandy's government examined the regulations and
systems issued by the Germans and their helpers during the occupation
and divided them into three categories: Category A included regulations
that were retrospectively considered never to have been legally valid,
such as the anti-Jewish decrees of the occupiers. Category B included
regulations that were retrospectively considered valid but ended with
the onset of liberation, while decisions in Category C were to remain
valid for the time being.
In 1949, the West German municipality
of Elten (near Emmerich) and the surrounding area came under Dutch
administration until 1963. The residents there remained formally German
citizens, but received Dutch passports and were given the same legal
status as Dutch citizens. A demand made in the Netherlands for the
annexation of parts of the Münsterland and the Rhineland near the border
was not successful. The Selfkant was also placed under Dutch
administration in 1949. This was provided for in the final declaration
of the London Germany Conference. Only after long negotiations and the
payment of 280 million DM was the Selfkant returned to the Federal
Republic of Germany. The N274, which runs through this area, remained in
Dutch ownership until February 25, 2002.
Although it was
originally expected that the loss of Indonesia would lead to economic
ruin, the opposite occurred and in the 1950s the wealth of the
Netherlands grew rapidly. In 1952 the Netherlands founded the European
Coal and Steel Community with France, the Federal Republic of Germany,
Italy, Belgium and Luxembourg. The ECSC (or European Coal and Steel
Community) was one of the cornerstones of the later European Union. The
country is also one of the founding members of NATO.
In 1953, a
severe flood resulted in many deaths in Zeeland and Zuid-Holland (see
Flood disaster of 1953). In order to prevent such a disaster in the
future, the Delta Plan was drawn up, which envisaged raising dikes and
closing off estuaries. The implementation of this ambitious plan took
several decades.
Even before the Second World War, the Netherlands had been confronted
with various nationalist movements within the colonies. Already in the
course of the 1930s, Japan's aggressive development policy had caused
sharp criticism from the Dutch government.
Immediately after the
Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945, the Dutch East Indies declared
its independence on August 17, 1945 and from then on called itself
Indonesia. This date is still considered the birth of the republic. The
Netherlands fought the Indonesian Republic militarily and only gave up
under international pressure from the United Nations and the United
States of America. The country formally became independent on December
27, 1949, after the Indonesian War of Independence. However, Dutch New
Guinea did not become independent until 1961/62 and was then annexed by
Indonesia despite the clear cultural differences.
In 1954, the
colonies of the Netherlands Antilles (in the Caribbean) and Suriname (in
South America) became equal partners of the Netherlands with the
adoption of the Statute for the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Responsibility for defense and foreign relations remained with the
kingdom. In 1975, Suriname became an independent republic. In 1986, the
island of Aruba was separated from the Antilles, making the kingdom
comprised of the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba.
Another state reform in 2010 led to the dissolution of the Netherlands
Antilles. The islands of Sint Maarten and Curaçao, like Aruba, were
given the status of their own country within the Kingdom, while Sint
Eustatius, Saba and Bonaire have since belonged to the Netherlands as
so-called special municipalities (Dutch: bijzondere gemeenten).
Verzuiling reached its peak in the 1960s, after which the Dutch
people's ties to their religious or cultural groups weakened. In the
1970s, the three major religious parties united, while on the left,
similar attempts (such as those by Democraten 66) failed. It was not
until around 1990 that three smaller parties merged to form GroenLinks.
On April 30, 1980, there was a change at the top of the royal
family. Queen Beatrix of Orange-Nassau became queen, succeeding Queen
Juliana, who abdicated at the age of 71.
The new province of
Flevoland was created in 1986 from the Northeast Polder and Flevoland
Polder, which had been dyked since 1929.
In the election to the Second Chamber on May 3, 1994, the Christian
Democrats suffered a dramatic fall (from 54 to 34 seats). For the first
time since 1918, a cabinet without a religious party was formed (Kok I
Cabinet: Social Democrats, right-wing and left-wing liberals). The
Social Democrat Wim Kok became Prime Minister of the "purple coalition"
(until 2002). The coalition's socio-political innovations included
active euthanasia and homohuwelijk, marriage for homosexuals (since
April 1, 2001). In 2004, the Queen's parents (Bernhard and Juliana)
died, and in October 2002 her husband (Claus). The wedding of Crown
Prince Willem-Alexander to Máxima Zorreguita in February 2002 caused a
stir - the bride's father was a member of the government during the
Videla dictatorship in Argentina. He was not allowed to attend the
wedding. In 2003, a scandal arose when a daughter of Beatrix's sister
Irene, Princess Margarete, accused the Queen and the government of
wiretapping her and her husband. It was confirmed that the husband's
financial background had been checked by the security authorities,
contrary to the usual regulations. The Queen found the husband's
character unsuitable for the royal family; in 2006 Margarita separated
from him.
The murders of politician Pim Fortuyn on May 6, 2002 in
Hilversum, and of film director Theo van Gogh on November 2, 2004 in
Amsterdam, shocked the Dutch public. They led to heated debates about a
multicultural society, coexistence with immigrants and the self-image of
Dutch society. After the murder of Theo van Gogh, there were also arson
attacks on Islamic and Christian institutions in the Netherlands.
Pim Fortuyn's electoral list received 17 percent of the vote in the
election on 15 May 2002 (nine days after his assassination), while the
government parties (mainly the Social Democrats) lost. Jan Peter
Balkenende (CDA) formed a coalition with the right-wing liberals and the
Fortuyn list (Balkenende I cabinet). In October the coalition collapsed
and, after the new election, Balkenende replaced the Fortuynists with
the left-wing liberals (Democrats 66) (Balkenende II cabinet). The
latter left the government in 2006, and after the new election in the
same year, Balkenende formed his third cabinet in 2007, a government
made up of Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and the fundamental
Christian Christian Union. Mark Rutte has been Prime Minister since 2010
(see Rutte I, II, III cabinet and Rutte IV cabinet).
In June 2010, parliamentary elections resulted in a stalemate that
resulted in a minority coalition led by Mark Rutte. During this period,
the Netherlands was one of the most developed countries among the UN
nations, ranking 4th out of 195 nations worldwide and considered "very
highly developed."
In April 2012, Rutte's coalition collapsed,
leading to new elections and a new coalition with the PvdA. The
following year, Queen Beatrix abdicated and handed the throne over to
Willem-Alexander. In 2014, the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight
MH17 over eastern Ukraine rocked the nation. 2 years later, the Dutch
people rejected the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. After another
election victory for Rutte the following year, the important issues
during this period were integration and climate policy. In 2017, the
country implemented a comprehensive organ donation law. A terrorist
attack in Utrecht (2019) shook the country. In the same year, after 14
years of debate, Rutte's government passed a controversial law banning
face veils in certain public areas, also known as the "burqa ban".
The Netherlands enjoyed a societal and social climate of prosperity
and progress in the 2010s. The country continued to experience strong
economic growth (1.47% per year) and unemployment was at a historic low
(4.4%). Technological advances and government modernization measures
during this decade led to further urbanization and improved
infrastructure, particularly in the areas of transport and digital
technologies. In terms of public infrastructure, the Netherlands was
characterized by excellent transport networks, modern digital
infrastructure and well-developed urban facilities.
The
Netherlands had a high quality of life in the 2010s, supported by a
strong welfare system and a high level of social security. The Dutch
healthcare system was also considered one of the best in the world at
the time. It was based on the principle of solidarity and guaranteed
universal access to high-quality care for all citizens. The system was
financed through a mix of private and public funds and covered about
99.9% of the population.
The Netherlands had to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to
2023. There was a first wave in spring 2020, followed by a calmer summer
phase. From autumn 2020, variants such as Alpha and later Delta led to
increasing infections and new lockdowns. The Omicron variant caused a
strong spread from the end of 2021, but with less strain on hospitals.
The measures alternated between easing and tightening, accompanied by
protests and social criticism. The pandemic officially ended in March
2023, when COVID-19 was classified as a normal respiratory disease.
Overall, the Netherlands was partially successful in containing the
pandemic, despite high waves of infection. Vaccination campaigns,
measures and adjustments helped to stabilize the situation, but protests
and criticism accompanied the strategy. In 2021, parliamentary elections
were held in the Netherlands from March 15 to 17. The VVD under Mark
Rutte remained the strongest force, but the fragmented party system with
17 parties made it difficult to form a government. The election was
marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, with curfews, protests and adjustments
to the electoral process, such as postal voting for those over 70. After
the elections, a lengthy government-forming process began. Rutte
initially tried to form a coalition with D66, CDA and CU. But due to
internal conflicts and motions of no confidence, negotiations were
significantly delayed, leading to a record 299 days to form a
government. Finally, on January 10, 2022, the Rutte IV cabinet was sworn
in, continuing the existing coalition.
Early parliamentary
elections were held in the Netherlands in November 2023, triggered by
the resignation of the Rutte IV cabinet in July 2023 due to a dispute
over asylum policy. The Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) led by Geert
Wilders won the election with 37 seats, followed by the GroenLinks-PvdA
coalition with 25 seats and the VVD with 24 seats. Despite the election
victory, Wilders did not become Prime Minister; instead, Dick Schoof
took office to unite the broad coalition of PVV, VVD, Nieuw Sociaal
Contract (NSC) and BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB). This 88-seat coalition
marked a political shift to the right and was sworn in on 15 May 2024.
The new government declared that it would introduce strict asylum rules
between 2024 and 2028, build 100,000 homes annually, reduce the health
insurance deductible, build nuclear power plants and strengthen public
security. In addition, tax relief, investments in infrastructure and
elderly care, as well as reforms in the electoral system and a new
constitutional court to promote citizen participation were planned.
About half of the country is less than one meter above, and around a
quarter of the country is below, sea level (measured near Amsterdam; see
picture on the right). The flat areas are usually protected from storm
surges by dikes, which have a total length of about 3,000 km. The
highest point in the Netherlands is Mount Scenery on the Caribbean
island of Saba, at 877 meters. The highest point on the mainland, the
Vaalserberg in the far south, in the province of Limburg in the border
triangle with Germany and Belgium, is 322.5 m above the Amsterdam level.
Parts of the Netherlands, for example almost the entire province of
Flevoland, have been reclaimed from the sea by land reclamation. They
are called polders (on the German North Sea coast, Koog or Groden). The
largest land reclamation project is associated with the Zuiderzee Works.
In 1932, the 29 km long dike was completed, which separated the
Zuiderzee bay from the North Sea. Several freshwater lakes were created
in the area of the former bay, of which the IJsselmeer makes up the
largest part. Of the polders created, the Flevopolder is the largest. It
is (depending on how you calculate it) the largest artificial island in
the world.
The most important rivers in the Netherlands (de grote
rivieren - 'the big rivers') are the Rhine, the Maas and the Scheldt.
They divide the country into a north and a south. The Rhine flows from
North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) and is a border river for a short
stretch. It soon branches off, thanks in part to canals that were dug to
better distribute the water masses. The branches of the Rhine finally
connect with the Maas, which flows from Belgium. Only in some sections
are the rivers still called the Rhine or the Nederrijn or Oude Rijn. The
rivers characterize the west of the Netherlands, the Rhine-Maas delta.
An important branch flows through Rotterdam and then into the North Sea
at Hoek van Holland; other branches connect the rivers with Amsterdam
and the IJsselmeer. Part of the border between Belgium and the
Netherlands runs in the Westerschelde, the estuary of the Scheldt.
The main wind direction is southwest, resulting in a temperate
maritime climate with cool summers and mild winters. Especially in the
west of the country, on the North Sea coast, the climate is more
Atlantic (mild winters, cool summers). Towards the east, the Atlantic
influence decreases somewhat, so that near the border with Germany one
can speak more of a sub-Atlantic climate with slightly colder winters
(mild to moderately cold) and slightly warmer summers.
The Hollandse Biesbosch, a river and marsh landscape
Weerribben-Wieden National Park
The Hoge Veluwe and Veluwezoom
National Parks in the Veluwe
The nature reserves on Texel
Oostvaardersplassen, a nature development area that is now home to the
largest herds of wild animals in Europe
Reeuwijkse Plassen near Gouda
Nieuwkoopse Plassen
Schiermonnikoog
The Delta Works: storm surge
barriers built after the 1953 storm surge
The Meinweg National Park
near Roermond in the province of Limburg
Originally, Dutch cuisine is not very different from German cuisine, in which potatoes, vegetables and sausages also play a major role (for example in stamppot). The most well-known are frieten or patat, Dutch for French fries, with various sauces, the most well-known combination being mayonnaise and peanut sauce (with onions), the patatje oorlog. Other specialties are Goudse kaas (Gouda cheese) and Hollandse Nieuwe; these matjes are young, not yet sexually mature herrings. Due to the Netherlands' past as a naval power, culinary influences from the former colonies came to the country, for example nasibal or bamibal. These are nasi goreng or bami goreng in the form of meatballs. The Dutch pudding Vla and the fried rolls, which are called frikandel, are also known beyond the country's borders, as are the fried fish bites Kibbeling, which are prepared in a similar way to chicken nuggets. The sweet stroopwafels, a waffle specialty, and Poffertjes are also typical.
An outstanding movement of the Renaissance was the Dutch School,
which was, however, largely supported by Flemish, Hainaut and French
people. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the organist and composer Jan
Pieterszoon Sweelinck had a great influence on the baroque North German
organ school from Amsterdam. For a long time, Dutch musical life in the
field of classical music was not organized at the level of other
European countries. It was not until the end of the 19th century that
professionalization took place and numerous orchestras and chamber
ensembles were formed. The best-known violinist and orchestra leader
since around 1995 has been André Rieu.
Important Dutch composers
around 1800 included the German-born Johann Wilhelm Wilms and Carel
Anton Fodor, both of whom were oriented towards Viennese classicism. In
the 19th century, musical life was dominated for a long time by
movements influenced by German Romanticism, represented by Richard Hol,
among others. Bernard Zweers was the first to try to develop a
specifically Dutch national music. He was followed by Julius Röntgen and
Alphons Diepenbrock, with whom Dutch music caught up with international
music developments. Important composers in the 20th century include
Willem Pijper, Matthijs Vermeulen, Louis Andriessen, Otto Ketting, Ton
de Leeuw, Theo Loevendie, Misha Mengelberg, Tristan Keuris and Klaas de
Vries (list of Dutch classical music composers).
The most famous
Dutch rock band Golden Earring had its biggest hit in the 1970s with
Radar Love. Also world famous in the 1970s were the classic rock bands
Ekseption around Rick van der Linden and Focus as well as Shocking Blue
with their hit Venus. Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen, members of the
US hard rock band Van Halen, were also born in the Netherlands.
Internationally known Dutch musicians include Herman van Veen, Robert
Long, Nits, Candy Dulfer, Anouk Teeuwe, Ellen ten Damme and Tiësto. The
annual North Sea Jazz Festival in Ahoy Rotterdam (formerly The Hague) is
one of the most important jazz events in the world.
For several
years, nederlandstalige muziek, music in the national language, has been
very successful. The Nestor of this genre is Peter Koelewijn, who has
been singing rock 'n' roll in his mother tongue for 50 years. Later,
singer-songwriter Boudewijn de Groot emerged. At the beginning of the
1980s, a short-lived cult of Dutch pop music emerged, the most important
representatives of which were Doe Maar, Het Goede Doel and Frank
Boeijen. After 1984, the popularity of this genre declined sharply, only
to recover ten years later, but this time not just for a few years.
The most famous pop/rock bands of the new era are Bløf, the most
played band on Dutch radio in recent years, and Acda en de Munnik, a duo
that became known through cabaret programs. Pop artists such as Marco
Borsato, Jan Smit and Frans Bauer achieve even higher record sales.
Well-known Dutch rappers are Ali B and Lange Frans. In addition, various
types of metal are very popular in the Netherlands. Well-known Dutch
metal bands include Heidevolk, Epica, Within Temptation, Delain, The
Gathering and After Forever.
Since the 1990s, a new style of
music has emerged in the Netherlands that is enjoying increasing
popularity throughout Europe and America: Hardcore techno or gabber
originated in Rotterdam, trance migrated from Germany to the Netherlands
and is most popular there worldwide. Well-known representatives are
Angerfist, Neophyte and DJ Buzz Fuzz. The expanded styles of music such
as jumpstyle, hardstyle and speedcore have also been very popular for
several years.
Many internationally successful DJs also come from
the Netherlands, such as Armin van Buuren, Hardwell and Martin Garrix.
In the “Golden Age” (De Gouden Eeuw) of the 17th century, literature
flourished alongside painting, the most famous representatives being
Joost van den Vondel and Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft.
Anne Frank
wrote her world-famous diary from 1942 to 1944 while she and her family
were in hiding in Amsterdam to avoid arrest or deportation to an
extermination camp.
The three most important authors of the
second half of the 20th century are Harry Mulisch (The Assassination
Attempt, The Discovery of Heaven, both also made into films), Willem
Frederik Hermans (The Darkroom of Damocles, also made into films; Never
Sleep Again) and Gerard Reve (The Evenings, The Fourth Man, both also
made into films). Other authors who are better known in Germany include
Maarten ’t Hart, Cees Nooteboom, Jan Wolkers and Hella Haasse.
This art form has a very high status in the performing arts in the Netherlands and is highly valued by the population (phrases with "grapje" (jokes) often permeate Dutch conversation). The grand masters of this subject after the Second World War were Wim Kan (political cabaret), Wim Sonneveld, Toon Hermans (de grote drie) and for decades in Germany Rudi Carrell.
Many world-famous painters were Dutch. One of the most famous early artists was Hieronymus Bosch. The heyday of the Republic in the 17th century, the so-called Golden Age, produced great artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Vermeer, Frans Hals, Carel Fabritius, Gerard Dou, Paulus Potter, Jacob Izaaksoon van Ruisdael and Jan Steen. During the Golden Age, around 700 painters worked in the Netherlands, completing around 70,000 paintings a year. Such an output of paintings is unprecedented in the entire history of art and was not achieved in the Italian Renaissance or in France during the Impressionist era. Famous painters of later eras were Vincent van Gogh and Piet Mondrian. M. C. Escher and Otto Heinrich Treumann were well-known graphic artists.
Dutch architects provided important impulses for the architecture of
the 20th century. Hendrik Petrus Berlage and the architects of the De
Stijl group (Robert van ’t Hoff, Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud, Gerrit
Rietveld) are particularly noteworthy. Johannes Duiker was a
representative of the New Building movement. Mart Stam built the New
Frankfurt and the Weissenhofsiedlung in Germany. The so-called Amsterdam
School (Michel de Klerk, Het Schip) made a remarkable contribution to
expressionist architecture.
Innovative Dutch architects also
emerged after the Second World War. Aldo van Eyck and Herman Hertzberger
shaped the architectural movement of structuralism. Piet Blom became
known for his idiosyncratic tree houses. Among contemporary architects,
Rem Koolhaas and his office Office for Metropolitan Architecture are
among the most influential representatives of a contemporary
architectural movement based on urban experience (at times classified as
deconstructivism), which influenced other world-famous offices such as
MVRDV, Mecanoo, Erick van Egeraat, Neutelings-Riedijk (most of whom were
students or former employees at OMA). Dutch architecture has had a
significant influence on global architectural development since the
1990s and continues to do so today.
Important scientists such as Erasmus of Rotterdam, Baruch Spinoza,
Christiaan Huygens and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek came from the Netherlands.
René Descartes spent most of his creative time in the Netherlands. In
fact, since the early modern period, numerous persecuted scientists have
found asylum and opportunities to work in the Netherlands.
The
leading research areas in the Netherlands are: biomedicine, cognitive
science, global studies, linguistics, medicine, nanotechnology, social
psychology, social sciences and water management.
Modern
sociology owes important inspiration to its Dutch founder S. Rudolf
Steinmetz. For medicine in the early modern period, the educational
institutions in the city of Leiden (especially the Leiden University
Library) were a relevant center from which important impulses emanated.
Today there are 14 state universities in the Netherlands and numerous
colleges. The European Space Agency is located in Noordwijk.
The
Stichting Internet Domeinregistratie Nederland (SIDN) has been managing
the Netherlands' top-level domain, .nl, since 1996 as the successor to
the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica. The RIPE NCC is based in Amsterdam.
The modern Netherlands is one of the world's most innovative
countries and economies. In the 2017 global innovation index, which
measures the innovative capacity of individual countries, the country
ranks third out of 130 economies examined.
The most important traditional newspapers are De Telegraaf, AD, de Volkskrant, NRC Handelsblad and Trouw. A historically important national daily newspaper was Het Parool, which was later redesigned as an Amsterdam city newspaper. In 1999, the first free newspapers in the Netherlands, metro and Sp!ts, were published, and DAG and De Pers have since joined them. These and the Internet have taken away some significant market share from the traditional newspapers. Four political weekly magazines are published: De Groene Amsterdammer, Elsevier, HP/De Tijd, Vrij Nederland.
As in many European countries, the radio and television landscape in
the Netherlands is divided into public and private broadcasters. The
public radio programs include the programs of the Nederlandse Publieke
Omroep (NPO Radio 1, NPO Radio 2, NPO Radio 4 and NPO Radio 5). Public
television programs are NPO 1, NPO 2 and NPO 3, as well as BVN for Dutch
people abroad. The programs are largely financed through taxes, but also
partly through the membership system. Originally, the radio stations
were set up by ideologically oriented associations. There was the
Catholic or the workers' radio. The most listened to radio program is
NPO Radio 2.
There are also some private radio and television
stations in the Netherlands, e.g. B. RTL 4, RTL 5, SBS 6, RTL 7, RTL 8,
NET 5 and Veronica. The market leader is the RTL Group with RTL 4.
Foreign TV content, such as American productions, which make up a
large part of Dutch television, are not dubbed like in Germany, but
broadcast in the original language and subtitled. Programs for children
are an exception due to their dubbing.
Football is considered a national sport in the Netherlands. The
forerunner of the football association Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbal
Bond (KNVB) was founded in 1889.
The Dutch women's national team
is one of the best women's teams in the world. They won the European
Championship in 2017 and came second at the 2019 World Cup.
The
Dutch men's national football team, known as Nederlands elftal or Oranje
for short, was one of the strongest national teams in the world for many
years. Ronald Koeman has been the coach since January 2023. The national
team has taken part in eleven European Football Championships since 1976
and won the title in 1988. They have been represented at eleven World
Cups since 1934 and came second in 1974, 1978 and 2010, and third at the
2014 World Cup. The Netherlands are ranked 8th in the all-time World Cup
table and 5th in the all-time European Championship table.
Cricket used to be a popular sport, but is now overshadowed by football,
but the sport has become more popular again in recent years. The Dutch
national cricket team has qualified for five Cricket World Cups (1996,
2003, 2007, 2011 and 2023). The Netherlands also co-hosted the 1999
Cricket World Cup, but did not take part in it themselves. They have
also qualified for six T20 World Cups (2009, 2014, 2016, 2021, 2022 and
2024). The victories over England in the 2009 tournament and South
Africa in both the 2022 tournament and the 2023 World Cup are
particularly noteworthy.
The Netherlands women's national hockey
team is the most successful national team at the Hockey World Cup,
having won the tournament nine times (1974, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1990,
2006, 2014, 2018 and 2022). The Netherlands men's national hockey team
has won the World Cup three times (1973, 1990 and 1998).
Rugby
union is also played in the Netherlands. However, the Dutch national
team has not yet managed to qualify for a Rugby Union World Cup. The
Netherlands is one of the participants in the European Rugby Union
Championship, where they will face other up-and-coming national teams.
The Netherlands has already hosted major sporting tournaments such
as the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 2000 European Football Championship
(together with Belgium).
In motorsport, the motorcycle world
championship Grand Prix circuit in Assen (Dutch TT), the Formula 1 Grand
Prix circuit in Zandvoort and the De Bonte Wever ice stadium in Assen
with its ice speedway world championship races are well known worldwide.
The Dutch Formula 1 racing driver Max Verstappen won the Formula 1 World
Championship four times in a row from 2021 to 2024.
Special
Olympics Netherlands was founded in 1993 and has participated in the
Special Olympics World Games several times.
The Netherlands had 17.9 million inhabitants in 2023. Annual
population growth was + 1.0%. Despite a death surplus (birth rate: 9.5
per 1000 inhabitants vs. death rate: 9.6 per 1000 inhabitants), the
population grew through migration. The number of births per woman in
2022 was statistically 1.5, that of the European Union was 1.5. The life
expectancy of the inhabitants of the Netherlands from birth was 81.7
years in 2022. The median age of the population in 2021 was 41.7 years.
In 2023, 15.3 percent of the population was under 15 years, while the
proportion of people over 64 was 20.7 percent of the population.
With over 518 inhabitants (2020) per square kilometer of land area
(33,718 km²), the Netherlands is one of the most densely populated
countries in the world. About half of the population lives in the
Randstad, the densely populated west of the country.
Statistically, the Dutch are the people with the tallest people in the
world, on average 1.83 meters (men) and 1.72 meters (women).
Between 6,000 and 10,000 Sinti and Roma live in the Netherlands, as
well as around 30,000 so-called woonwagenbewoners. They are also
disparagingly called kampers, but prefer the term reizigers themselves.
They live on fixed sites in stationary caravans. Many of them do
itinerant work. They are mostly descended from impoverished Dutch
farmers, farm workers and peat cutters of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Their number has grown considerably since the end of the Second World
War in connection with labor migration and housing costs due to
immigration from the majority population. The language within the group,
Bargoens, is a Dutch-based special language that is comparable to the
German Rotwelsch or Jenisch.
People from all over the world have
immigrated to the Netherlands. Apart from many immigrants from
neighboring countries (including Germany, Belgium and England), many
people from other parts of the world live here today, including Morocco
and Turkey, the former colonies of Indonesia, Suriname and the
Caribbean.
The official language in the entire country is Dutch (standard
Dutch), which developed from Low Franconian dialects in the Netherlands
(Dutch dialects). In the province of Fryslân, the related West Frisian
is also the administrative language.
Low Franconian dialects are
spoken in the southwestern half of the country. The local dialects in
the southeast belong to Ripuarian and in the northeast to Low Saxon. Low
Franconian, Ripuarian and Low Saxon dialects are spoken in the dialect
continuum across national borders, including in Germany, and Low
Franconian and Ripuarian dialects are also spoken in Belgium.
In
the overseas parts of the empire (in the Caribbean), Dutch is the
official language, alongside either Papiamento or English. A branch of
Dutch that is now a standard language in its own right is Afrikaans in
South Africa and Namibia.
The Dutch population is now considered to be one of the least
religious or church-affiliated in Europe. Hundreds of church buildings
have been demolished, sold, or converted to secular purposes. Numerous
monasteries have been closed, and there are hardly any church hospitals
or schools left. According to the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek
(CBS), in 2023 only 17% of the population were Catholics, while 13%
belonged to Protestant churches. Around 6% of the inhabitants of the
Netherlands are connected to Muslim communities. Among young people
between the ages of 18 and 25, the proportion of believers is 30
percent; among those over 75, it is 63 percent. Attendance at Sunday
services is also very low in the Netherlands: in 2021, 13 percent of
church members attended services at least once a month, compared to 18
percent in 2010. Regular attendance at mass is particularly low among
Catholics (1%), while among Protestants more than half of the members
attend Sunday services, according to the CBS study. The lack of pastors
is clearly noticeable in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, which
is leading to a merger of various congregations. On the other hand,
there are already initial experiences of entrusting congregation members
who do not have extensive theological training with certain liturgical
activities, such as the design and management of memorial services and
funerals.
The traditionally largest population group was that of
Protestants (almost 60 percent in 1849). However, due to secularization,
over the course of the 20th century they were surpassed in number by the
non-denominational and also by Catholics (around 38 percent in 1849).
The Protestants in the Netherlands are predominantly Calvinists, named
after the French reformer John Calvin, who worked primarily in Geneva in
the 16th century. The Low German Reformed Church (Nederduits
Gereformeerde Kerk), founded in Emden in 1571, is considered the
"original church" of the Reformed Church in the Netherlands. Today,
Calvinism is institutionally united with the Lutherans in the Protestant
Church in the Netherlands (United Church).
In the 19th century,
two different Calvinist movements emerged in the Netherlands, the more
moderate and numerically stronger hervormden and the stricter
gereformeerden. Both words mean "reformed" and were originally used
indiscriminately. In German, the difference cannot be expressed, so the
gereformeerden is sometimes referred to as "alt-reformed" (although
organizationally it is the younger movement, a split from the Nederlands
hervormde kerk) or "strictly reformed" or "strictly Calvinistic".
Since a reorganization in 2004, there has been the Protestant Church
in the Netherlands, which is intended to unite both denominations.
However, some strict believers have remained independent, such as the
"liberated" Reformed Church, the second largest Protestant church
association.
Smaller Christian churches each have less than one
percent of the total population as members. These include various
evangelical free churches such as the "liberated" Reformed Church or
Baptists and Mennonites (Doopsgezinde). During the Reformation, the
Netherlands was one of the centers of the Anabaptist movement (see Menno
Simons). There is also the Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands, which
was founded in the 18th century and has its archbishop in Utrecht, from
which the Old Catholic Churches that emerged after the First Vatican
Council descend. Due to the persecution and expulsion of the indigenous
Assyrians from the Middle East, the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch is
represented in the Netherlands with over 30,000 believers.
The
north and west of the country were traditionally Protestant, while in
the south and east Catholics made up and in some cases still make up the
majority of the population. In the middle of the country there is a
so-called Bible Belt (Bijbelgordel) with a high proportion of Reformed
Christians. Catholics still make up the majority of the population in
some areas south of this Bible Belt (as of 2018), for example in
Limburg. To the north and west of the Bible Belt, the non-denominational
are clearly in the majority. Church tax is not levied in the
Netherlands.
The king is of the Reformed denomination
(hervormden). However, due to the synodal organization of Calvinist
churches, the monarch does not have a formal leadership role in the
Dutch Reformed Church, as was previously the case with Lutheran rulers
in Germany and Scandinavia.
A representative survey commissioned
by the European Commission as part of the Eurobarometer in 2020 found
that 26 percent of people in the Netherlands consider religion
important, 17 percent consider it neither important nor unimportant, and
57 percent consider it unimportant.
In the Netherlands, school attendance is compulsory between the ages
of 5 and 16. In practice, however, after lengthy proceedings, the courts
have frequently exempted individual parents from compulsory schooling
for their children, allowing them to home-school or learn independently
instead.
A significant difference to the school system in Germany
is that everyone in the Netherlands is free to set up their own schools
- albeit financed by the state - based on their religion or on certain
pedagogical principles. Therefore, two thirds of all students in the
Netherlands attend a private school. Most schools are either openbaar
("public"), Catholic or Protestant, although the Netherlands is one of
the most non-denominationalized countries in the world. The "non-public"
schools are usually run by foundations.
The schools are free to
choose their teaching methods. However, the content is formulated in
state guidelines and is binding for all schools. Whether the students
meet the performance requirements specified therein is regularly checked
using nationwide, state tests. This also applies to schools attended by
minorities. Since the mid-1980s, parents have been able to send their
children to Islamic or Hindu primary schools.
Parents can also
choose whether to send their children to a categorical school, where
only one type of school applies, or to opt for a school community. This
accommodates several types of school. Dutch schools are generally not
comprehensive schools, but at most "cooperative comprehensive schools"
with several types of school under one roof. Since the end of the 1990s,
many schools have merged for financial reasons, as this saves on
headmaster positions.
Dutch primary schools (basisschool) have
eight classes, which are referred to here as groepen (groups). Groep 1
refers to four-year-olds and groep 8 normally refers to
twelve-year-olds. These groepen therefore include both the pre-school
area (kindergarten) and the secondary school. The content of the lessons
from the fourth to fifth year of life (groep 1-2) can be compared to
kindergarten pedagogy in Germany. However, here it is generally more
integrated into the primary school curriculum. From groep 3, children
begin to learn to read, write and count. In the last two basic years,
English lessons begin; other foreign languages are only offered in
school trials.
In the last year of primary school, they take a
central exam. At the start of the 8th school year, a preliminary exam
(entreetoets) takes place, the results of which enable preparation for
the actual test (eindtoets). Unlike in Germany, where only the report of
a primary school teacher is used to choose a secondary school, in the
Netherlands a binding recommendation is made based on the exam results
and a report from the primary school, prepared by the class teachers of
the last school years and a non-teaching companion, from which
deviations can only be made in justified exceptions. Registration for
secondary school also takes place in the primary school, which passes
the recommendation and test results directly on to the secondary school.
After primary school, there is a secondary school for students
between the ages of 12 and 18. Secondary education can be completed in
the following institutions:
Institutions of "pre-university
education" (vwo)
Institutions of general secondary education (havo)
and
Institutions of vocational secondary education (vmbo).
The
first year of secondary schools of all three types is the so-called
transition class ("brugklas"). It serves primarily to orient the student
towards his future school career.
According to the World Higher
Education Ranking - 2023 by the magazine Times Higher Education, the
best universities in the Netherlands are Wageningen University (59th
place), the University of Amsterdam (60th place), Delft University of
Technology (70th place), the University of Groningen (75th place),
Leiden University (77th place) and the Erasmus University in Rotterdam
(80th place).
In the 2018 PISA studies, Dutch students ranked 7th
out of 77 countries in mathematics, 12th in science and 24th in reading
comprehension, putting them above the OECD average.
In the
Netherlands, a mobile phone ban will apply in all schools from 2024.
From 2005 to 2018, the Netherlands was in the top three places in the
Euro Health Consumer Index (EHCI), which compares healthcare systems in
Europe. The country performed particularly well in all indicators of the
EHCI in 2018, together with Switzerland. The healthcare system is quite
effective compared to other Western countries, but not the most
cost-effective.
Since a major reform of the healthcare system in
2006, the Dutch system has received more points in the index every year.
According to the HCP (Health Consumer Powerhouse), the Netherlands has a
"chaos system", which means that patients are largely free to choose
which insurer they can take out their health insurance with and from
whom they receive their medical care. The difference between the
Netherlands and other countries is that the chaos is managed.
Healthcare in the Netherlands can be divided in several ways: into three
levels, into somatic and mental healthcare, and into cure (short-term)
and care (long-term).
Healthcare in the Netherlands is financed
through a dual system that came into force in January 2006. Long-term
treatments, especially those requiring semi-permanent hospitalization,
as well as disability costs are subject to state-controlled compulsory
insurance. This is laid down in the General Exceptional Healthcare
Expenses Act (Algemene Wet Bijzondere Ziektekosten), which first came
into force in 1968. In 2009, this insurance covered 27 percent of all
healthcare costs. As of January 1, 2015, the AWBZ was replaced by the
Long-Term Care Act (die Wet Langdurige Zorg, WLZ).
Health
insurance in the Netherlands is compulsory. Healthcare in the
Netherlands is subject to two statutory forms of insurance:
Zorgverzekeringswet (ZVW), often referred to as “basic insurance,”
covers usual medical care.
Algemene Wet Bijzondere Ziektekosten
(AWBZ) covers long-term care and nursing care (since 2015 Wet Langdurige
Zorg, WLZ).
While Dutch residents are automatically insured for
the AWBZ by the government, everyone must take out their own basic
insurance (Basisverzekering), except for those under 18, who
automatically fall under their parents' premium. Those who do not take
out insurance risk a fine. Insurers must offer a universal package for
everyone over 18, regardless of age or health status. It is forbidden to
refuse an application or impose special conditions. Unlike many other
European systems, the Dutch government is responsible for the
accessibility and quality of the healthcare system in the Netherlands,
but not for its administration.
For all regular (short-term)
medical treatments, there is compulsory health insurance with private
health insurers. These insurance companies are obliged to provide a
package with a certain number of insured treatments. This insurance
covers 41 percent of all healthcare expenditure.
Other sources of
healthcare are taxes (14 percent), out-of-pocket costs (9 percent),
additional optional health insurance packages (4 percent) and a number
of other sources (4 percent). Financing is secured through a system of
income-related allowances and individual and employer-paid
income-related premiums.
In 2020, 38.5 doctors per 10,000
inhabitants practiced in the Netherlands. In 2016, 20.4 percent of the
population was severely overweight, which is below the European average.
The under-5 mortality rate in 2022 was 3.9 per 1,000 live births. The
life expectancy of the inhabitants of the Netherlands from birth was
81.7 years in 2022 (women: 83.2, men: 80.3). Life expectancy increased
by 5% from 78 years in 2000 to 2022.
The Netherlands is a parliamentary monarchy. According to the
constitution, the head of state is the king, currently King
Willem-Alexander. He officially appoints the prime minister and the
ministers, who together form the government.
The parliament, the
States General (Staten-Generaal), consists of two chambers. The first is
elected by the members of the provincial parliaments, the second by the
Dutch citizens according to lists. This makes the Second Chamber (Tweede
Kamer) the more important; it corresponds to the German Bundestag or the
National Council in Austria and the National Council in Switzerland.
Formally, the parliament does not have the right to determine the
composition of the government; in fact, the king appoints the ministers
after consulting the factions.
The four largest factions in the Second Chamber are the right-wing
populist PVV, the green-social democratic electoral alliance
GroenLinks-PvdA, the right-liberal VVD and the Christian Democratic NSC.
After the parliamentary election in November 2023, a coalition
government led by Dick Schoof consisting of PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB took
office on July 2, 2024.
The Netherlands does not have a
comprehensive legal regulation of parties, as there is in Germany with
the Party Law. A law specifically for parties was passed in 1997 with
the Law on the Subsidy of Political Parties. It defines a party as a
political association that has been entered in the register kept by the
Electoral Council for the election to the Second Chamber. However, a
party with fewer than 1,000 members does not generally receive a state
subsidy, but is not obliged to disclose the origin of its funds, such as
donations. The state subsidy is designed in such a way that a party
receives a certain amount per member. In election years, this amount is
higher.
In a Dutch party, the party leader is responsible for the
functioning of the party apparatus and is comparatively less prominent.
The political leader (or party leader, politieke leider or partijleider)
is elected separately and is the leading candidate in elections, i.e.
lijsttrekker.
In the 2023 election, representatives of the
following parties entered the Second Chamber:
People's Party for
Freedom and Democracy (VVD) (right-wing liberal)
Party of Labour
(PvdA) (social democratic)
Party for Freedom (PVV) (right-wing
populist)
Socialist Party (SP) (democratic socialist)
Christian
Democratic Appeal (CDA) (Christian democratic)
Democrats 66 (D66)
(social liberal)
Christian Union (CU) (Calvinist-social)
Green
Left (GL) (ecological and socialist)
Reformed Political Party (SGP)
(Calvinist-conservative)
Party for the Animals (PvdD) (animal rights
party)
DENK (particularly represents voters with Turkish roots)
Forum voor Democratie (FvD) (right-wing populist)
JA21
Volt
Nederland (social liberal and Euro-federalist)
BoerBurgerBeweging
Nieuw Sociaal Contract
Furthermore, there is the 50PLUS and the
Onafhankelijke Politiek Nederland (OPNL) in the First Chamber. The OPNL
has a single MP who mainly represents smaller groups that only work at
the provincial level. The PVV is not a party in the sense of the German
member parties, as it has only one member, namely Geert Wilders.
The 2016 state budget included expenditure of the equivalent of 333.5
billion US dollars, against revenue of 322.0 billion US dollars,
resulting in a budget deficit of 1.4 percent of gross domestic product.
The national debt in 2016 was 482 billion US dollars, or 62.6 percent of
gross domestic product.
Shares of government spending on selected
sectors in GDP:
Health: 11.1%
Education: 5.3%
Military: 2.1%
(2024)
The Dutch legal system is based on the French Civil Code (Code civil)
with influences from Roman law and traditional Dutch customary law.
The Netherlands applies civil law. Its laws are written and the
application of customary law is exceptional. The role of case law is
theoretically small. In practice, however, it is often impossible to
understand the law without considering the relevant case law.
The centrally organized police force (Nationale Politie) in the
European part of the country has around 63,000 employees and, since a
reform in 2013, has been divided into a national unit deployed
nationwide, a police service center and ten regional police districts.
For the Caribbean part of the Netherlands (Bonaire, Sint Eustatius,
Saba), there is an independent police corps, the Korps Politie Caribisch
Nederland.
The Koninklijke Marechaussee, with around 6,800
employees, is organizationally part of the Dutch armed forces. Its tasks
include border protection, guarding airports and providing personal
protection for the royal family.
The Dutch armed forces are formally an institution of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, not of the country of the Netherlands. However, since the Dutch government has supreme command of the armed forces according to the constitution, they are de facto attributed to the country of the Netherlands. General conscription was suspended indefinitely in 1996. The Netherlands thus has a professional army. The armed forces comprise a total of 53,130 people, of which 23,150 are in the army, 11,050 in the air force and 12,130 in the navy. There is also the Royal Marechaussee, which has been an independent part of the armed forces since 1998. Military expenditure in 2017 amounts to 1.2 percent of gross domestic product (for comparison: Germany 1.2 percent, United States 3.1 percent) or almost 10 billion US dollars. The Dutch army (Royal Land Force) is also linked to the German Bundeswehr through the First German-Dutch Corps.
The country stimulated the introduction of the euro in 1999 (Treaty
of Maastricht) as the currency unit of the European Union. Since January
1, 2002, the euro has been the official currency unit, replacing the
Dutch guilder.
The following international institutions are based
in the Netherlands:
International Court of Justice
International
Criminal Court
Europol
European Space Research and Technology
Centre
European Medicines Agency (since 2019)
The Netherlands is a decentralized unitary state. Below the national
level there are the provinces (Dutch provincies). In 1579 there were
initially seven provinces. Later the so-called Generaliteitslanden were
added as the provinces of Noord-Brabant and Limburg. Drenthe also became
a separate province, and the dominant province of Holland was split into
Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland in 1840. It was not until 1986 that
Flevoland was founded as the youngest province, making it twelve now.
There were repeated plans to change the division of the provinces,
all of which were abandoned. Most recently, in 2014, a reform proposed
by the then Minister of the Interior Ronald Plasterk was postponed.
The provinces, in turn, are divided into 342 municipalities
(gemeenten; as of January 1, 2023). There is no division into counties
below the provincial level. The 342 municipalities each belong to one of
the twelve provinces. There are also the waterschappen, which deal with
dike protection and water management.
Each province has a
parliament (Provinciale Staten) and a government (Gedeputeerde Staten).
The college consists of the King's Commissioner (Commissaris van de
Koning) and deputies elected by the provincial parliament. Similarly,
the municipalities have a municipal council and a magistrate (College
van burgemeester en wethouders), which consists of the mayor and
assessors (wethouders) elected by the council.
The King's
Commissioners and the mayors are appointed by royal decree by the
government, generally on the proposal of the States or the municipal
council. In the provinces and large cities, the distribution of
political power in the national parliament is taken into account. Many
mayors make a career as mayor, serving successively in different
municipalities (for a six-year period that can be renewed). A mayor is
therefore not the elected representative of the municipal council or the
local population. For years there have been discussions about
introducing an elected mayor. A prerequisite for this was created in
2018 by a constitutional amendment that removed the appointment of the
mayor by the king from the constitution.
Since 1986, the Kingdom of the Netherlands has consisted of three
countries: the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. Aruba,
which previously belonged to the Netherlands Antilles, was given the
status of a single country in 1986. With the dissolution of the
Netherlands Antilles, the Caribbean islands were given a new division on
October 10, 2010:
Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten are individual
countries in the kingdom,
Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba are
"special municipalities" of the Netherlands, but do not belong to any
Dutch province.
The Netherlands has a well-functioning, rather liberal economic
system. Since the 1980s, the government has largely reduced its economic
interventions. With the approval of unions, employers and the state,
wage moderation has taken place in the country. Long before its European
neighbors, the country ensured a balanced state budget and successfully
combated stagnation in the labor market.
The unemployment rate
was 3.9 percent in June 2018, well below the European Union average. In
2017, youth unemployment was 8.8 percent. In 2015, 1.2 percent of all
workers worked in agriculture, 17.2 percent in industry and 81.6 percent
in the service sector. The total number of employees is estimated at
7.67 million for 2017, of which 46.1 percent are women.
The
manufacturing sector is dominated by food (Unilever, Heineken),
chemicals (AkzoNobel, DSM), oil refineries (Shell) and the manufacture
of electrical equipment (Philips, TomTom, Océ) as well as trucks (DAF).
Services are exceptionally important. The major financial services
providers (ING, Fortis, AEGON), the world ports of Rotterdam and
Amsterdam and Schiphol Airport (Amsterdam Airport) are among the five
largest service providers in Europe.
Highly technological
agriculture is extraordinarily productive: in addition to the
cultivation of grain, vegetables, fruit and cut flowers - tulip
cultivation even influenced the history of the country - there is also
large-scale dairy farming. The latter provides the basis for cheese, an
important export product. Dutch agriculture employs just over 1 percent
of the workforce, but contributes significantly to exports. The
Netherlands is the world's second largest exporter of agricultural
products after the United States.
With over 15.8 million
tourists, the Netherlands was the 21st most visited country in 2016.
Tourism revenues in the same year amounted to 14 billion US dollars. The
most important tourist destination in the Netherlands is the city of
Amsterdam. There are ten UNESCO World Heritage sites in the country.
As a co-founder of the euro zone, the Netherlands replaced the
previous currency, the guilder, with the euro for banking transactions
on January 1, 1999. Three years later, on January 1, 2002, euro coins
and banknotes replaced the guilder as a means of payment for consumers.
In comparison with the gross domestic product of the European Union
expressed in purchasing power standards, the Netherlands achieved an
index of 129 (EU-28: 100) in 2015. The Netherlands has concluded several
double taxation agreements with Germany.
According to a study by
the Credit Suisse bank in 2019, the Netherlands ranked 15th in the world
in terms of total national wealth. The Dutch people's total holdings of
real estate, stocks and cash totaled 3,719 billion US dollars. The
wealth per adult is $279,077 on average and $31,057 on median (in
Germany: $216,654 and $35,313 respectively). The Gini coefficient for
wealth distribution was 90.2 in 2019, which indicates high wealth
inequality and is the highest of all countries listed.
The
country's gross domestic product was 702.6 billion euros in 2016. Gross
domestic product per capita was 39,217 euros in the same year. After the
financial crisis of 2007 and the associated decline in economic output,
the economy is now growing again. In 2016, the economy grew by 2.2
percent, making the Dutch economy the third year in a row to grow.
The Netherlands has one of the most competitive export economies in
the world. Despite its relatively small population, it was the fifth
largest exporter of goods and services in the world in 2016. The
Netherlands is one of the countries in the world that is most integrated
into global trade. The largest trading partner in 2016 was Germany.
In the global index for growth opportunities, the Netherlands ranks
4th out of 137 countries (as of 2017/2018). In the index for economic
freedom, the country ranks 15th out of 180 countries in 2017.
There are large natural gas fields under parts of the Netherlands.
The most important gas field is in the province of Groningen. Production
also takes place in the North Sea. In 1996, Dutch natural gas production
amounted to 75.8 billion cubic meters (according to BP), ranking fifth
among countries, after Russia (561.1 billion cubic meters), the United
States (546.9 billion cubic meters), Canada (153.0 billion cubic meters)
and the United Kingdom (84.6 billion cubic meters). Production is
declining and was 48.7 billion cubic meters in 2016. The Netherlands
began importing natural gas from Russia; this covered about a seventh of
demand in 2020/21. The Netherlands' energy mix is heavily focused on
natural gas; it covers about 40 percent of total energy needs. In 2018,
it was decided to reduce production in the Groningen gas field because
it triggers numerous earthquakes that cause damage to buildings. It is
scheduled to be stopped by 2030.
On February 24, 2022, Russian
troops began the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the orders of President
Putin. The price of gas rose sharply. The Netherlands announced that it
wanted to become independent of Russian gas supplies by the end of 2022.
Russia stopped gas supplies to the Netherlands on May 30, 2022.
There are small oil reserves in the sea and in the provinces of Drenthe
and Zuid-Holland, as well as larger salt deposits near Delfzijl and
Hengelo. In 1974, coal mining in southern Limburg in the area around
Heerlen (“Oostelijke Mijnstreek” mining area) was stopped because the
extraction costs were too high. Apart from peat (including in the
Bourtanger Moor), the Netherlands has no other significant mineral
resources.
The Netherlands has a well-developed road network with a total length
of 116,500 kilometers. The rail network is the busiest in Europe with a
total length of 2,808 kilometers. In the Logistics Performance Index,
which is compiled by the World Bank, the country ranked sixth out of 160
countries in 2018. The infrastructure and the logistical time required
performed particularly well. The most important transport company is the
Dutch railway company Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS). Of the total
transport volume in the Netherlands, around 44 percent is transported by
road and 30.5 percent by rail. The Dutch mostly use bridges of the Dutch
bridge type with their high suspended counterweight. But some push
bridges, swing bridges and lifting bridges are still in operation and
are used for canal and canal crossings.
The rivers Rhine, Maas
and Scheldt, which flow from other European countries through the
Netherlands into the North Sea, make the Netherlands a hub for European
inland shipping. The port of Rotterdam was the largest port in the world
for decades. However, it lost this position to the port of Shanghai in
2004. However, the port of Rotterdam remains the largest port in Europe.
Other important port cities within the Netherlands are Amsterdam,
Eemshaven, Vlissingen/Terneuzen.
The Netherlands has two
international airports: Schiphol and Rotterdam-The Hague. Schiphol, the
largest airport in the Netherlands, also plays an important
international role. It is one of the largest airports in Europe and
ranks 13th among the largest airports in the world in terms of the
number of passengers.
In the Netherlands, three cities have a
subway system, namely Rotterdam, The Hague and Amsterdam. All trams in
the Netherlands, such as in Amsterdam, The Hague-Zoetermeer (Zoetermeer:
RandstadRail) or Rotterdam, use the standard gauge. City buses are
officially allowed to use the track with a road-like surface to avoid
getting stuck in traffic.
The bicycle (fiets) is widespread in
the Netherlands. Cyclists often have their own traffic lanes or a
separate cycle path network at their disposal. With an average of 37
traffic fatalities per million inhabitants per year (2017), traffic in
the Netherlands is one of the safest in the EU. Germany also has an
average of 37 traffic fatalities per million inhabitants (as of 2017).
North Rhine-Westphalia, which is comparable to the Netherlands in terms
of both population size and population density, has an average of 25
traffic fatalities per million inhabitants.
In 2019, the fire service in the Netherlands was organized nationwide by around 4,400 professional and 19,600 volunteer firefighters, who work in 969 fire stations and fire houses, in which 1,070 fire engines and 130 turntable ladders or telescopic masts are available. The proportion of women is 6 percent. The Dutch fire services were called out to 143,500 operations in the same year, and 38,900 fires had to be extinguished. 22 dead people were recovered by the fire services in fires. The national fire service association Nederlandse Vereniging voor Brandweerzorg en Rampenbestrijding represents the Dutch fire service in the World Fire Service Association CTIF.