Netherlands (2024)

FAQs

Is it the Netherlands or Holland? ›

In some languages, Holland is used as the formal name for the Netherlands. However, Holland is a region within the Netherlands that consists of the two provinces of North and South Holland. Formerly these were a single province, and earlier the County of Holland, which included parts of present-day Utrecht.

In the Dutch language, the Dutch refer to themselves as Nederlanders.

Holland. The use of Holland to refer to the entirety of the Netherlands is also a quirk of English (though it's done by some non-English speakers as well). The word derives from Old Dutch holt land, meaning “wood land,” and it specifically refers to one region of the Netherlands.

Turns out that after decades of being considered interchangeable terms, Holland and the Netherlands are two very different things. The difference between Holland and the Netherlands is that the former is a province, while the latter is the name of the entire country.

The Koninkrijk der Nederlanden (Kingdom of the Netherlands) is made up of 4 countries: Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten and the Netherlands.

But over time, English-speakers used 'Dutch' to refer to people from the area which is now the Netherlands and Germany, before separating into 'Low Dutch' (people from the lowlands – Belgium and the Netherlands) and 'High Dutch' – the Germans). To this day, we refer to people from the Netherlands as Dutch!

The Netherlands has 16 million inhabitants and Dutch is the only official language of the country. Frisian, spoken in the Northern province of Fryslân, has been granted local offical language status too. Frisian is very close to English.

Other forms: Dutchmen. Definitions of Dutchman. noun. a native or inhabitant of Holland. synonyms: Hollander, Netherlander.

More than half (55 percent) of Dutch people aged 15 years and over are not religious. In 2020, 20 percent of the Dutch population belonged to the Catholic Church, 14 percent were Protestant, 5 percent Muslim and 5 percent belonged to another religious group.

What currency does the Netherlands use? ›

The currency in the Netherlands is the euro. Each euro is divided into 100 cents. When you're buying currency for the Netherlands, look out for the currency code EUR. And once you're in the Netherlands, you'll see the symbol € used to show prices.

Popular belief holds that the Dutch are a mixture of Frisians, Saxons, and Franks. In fact, research has made plausible the contention that the autochthonous inhabitants of the region were a mixture of pre-Germanic and Germanic population groups who in the course of time had converged on the main deltaic…

Jenever (Genever) Jenever - the alcoholic beverage flavoured with juniper berries - is a traditional drink from the Netherlands. Jenever (also commonly spelled as genever) has a long history in the Netherlands.