Capital City: Amsterdam
Population: 16.5 million (very densely-populated country); 15 million live below sea level.
Currency: Euro
Languages: Dutch; also West Frisian, but only official and spoken in the northern province of Friesland.
Religion: The Netherlands is one of the most secular countries in Europe, with only 39% being religiously affiliated.
Part of EU?: Yes, it was one of the founding members in 1957.
Borders: Bordered by the North Sea to the North and West; Belgium to the South; Germany to the East
Rivers: The country is divided into two main parts by three major rivers: the Rhine, the Schelde and the Meuse.
Landscape: Generally low-lying, flat; mostly coastal lowland and reclaimed land (used to be islands, the Dutch stitched them all together, built a bunch of dams and windmills, controlled it and created a country out of it.
-The Netherlands is broken into 12 provinces; The country is commonly called Holland, which is incorrect because North and South Holland are merely two of its twelve provinces
FLOODING
Being a low-lying country, there have been many floods in the Netherlands. The last major flood took place in early February 1953, when a huge storm caused the collapse of several dikes, and more than 1,800 people drowned. The Dutch government subsequently decided on a large-scale programme of public works (the Delta Works) to protect the country against future flooding. The project took more than thirty years to complete, but greatly reduced the chances of flooding (chances are now 1 in 10,000).
Following the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005, the Americans looked to the Netherlands and inspected the Delta Works for tips on how to protect their low-lying areas.
THE HAGUE
The Hague is the seat of government in The Netherlands. It is known as the World’s Legal Capital because it is home to the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia), the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice
-The Economist ranks The Netherlands as the fourth most democratic country in the world; UNICEF ranks it first in child well-being
QUICK HISTORY
Until the 16th century, The Netherlands was known as the Low Countries, along with Belgium and Luxembourg. They were doing quite well, taking part in the Hanseatic League trade, the Renaissance was flourishing with artists like Reubens. Bruges and Ghent were two major cities in Europe. The regions had a lot of control over their own affairs (particularly in places such as Flanders and Holland), but their independence stated to be stripped away in the 1400s, with the rise of the Duchy of Burgundy.
Burgundy was a royal court that had carved out an empire between France, Germany and the Netherlands. It was known for magnificent trade (such as its sought-after Order of the Golden Fleece, a must-have for knights) and its support of the Renaissance (Jan Van Eyck was a patron of a Duke of Burgundy). The Dukes of Burgundy wanted to turn their Duchy into a kingdom, and nearly succeeded if it weren’t for the French coming in to stop them.
In 1415, the French went to war with the English, and the Dukes fought on the English side. In the end, the last great Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was murdered, and the French took back the French part of the Duchy while the Habsburgs kept the rest of it. Charles the Bold’s daughter, Mary, married the heir to the Holy Roman Emperor (Max), and from then on the Emperors (mainly Habsburgs) protected The Netherlands. They were quite happy there, too, with all of the Renaissance paintings and excellent trade systems.
Mary and Max had two children, Philip and Margaret, both of whom married into the royal house of Spain, which began the link between The Netherlands and Spain. Philip married Joanna (the daughter of the Spanish Inquisition’s Isabella), they gave birth to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
Charles V’s son, Philip II, ruled The Netherlands from Spain in the 1500s, during the time of the Reformation. Just like their social tolerance policy today, the people of The Netherlands were very tolerant back then too, especially when it came to religion, so they weren’t happy about Philip II taking after his great-grandmother and starting a new Inquisition against those who spoke against Catholicism.
In 1566, the Dutch Calvinists (who fully supported John Calvin’s theories and the Reformation), started smashing church statues and pictures (which they saw as idols that should not be worshipped - one of the major tenets of Protestantism) in the Iconoclastic Fury. Philip II wasn’t happy with this, and sent an army to crush these protesters.
In 1572, the Dutch Revolt occurred because the people resented being harshly put down by their absentee (and Catholic!) leader. They had been feeling resentful ever since Charles V first moved out of The Netherlands and into Spain, but the momentum of the Reformation and Philip II’s action inspired them to action.
During the Revolt, other countries jumped in on the side of the religion they supported, and it all ended in Philip II’s bankruptcy and Spain’s demise. The Dutch Revolt was part of the wider Thirty Years War.
The Netherlands officially declared independence from Spain in 1579, and in 1596, there was a split between the north and South (north being the Protestant Netherlands, and the south was the Catholic Spanish Netherlands, present-day Belgium).
During the 17th century, the Dutch had their Golden Age. They were a leading seafaring and commercial power, establishing colonies around the world. They took over the spice trade in the Far East from Portugal (it had been united with the Spanish crown during the wars, so it concentrated more on that than on business), and the Dutch East/West India trading companies were established (an unfortunate sidebar to this successful trading business was the slave trade that it depended on). William the Orange was their leader.
Because the English were their closest rival, there were several Anglo-Dutch wars. It was a burden for the small country to have to fight, and they were forced to give up some of their overseas territories (such as New Amsterdam, which became New York after the Dutch governor gave it up to the Duke of York).
But where the English weren’t successful in dominating the Dutch, the French Revolution was. Napoleon came in and named his own leaders (many of whom were French Catholics from Belgium), and the fiercely independent Dutch weren’t happy.
After a 20-year French occupation, upon hearing of Napoleon’s defeat, the Habsburgs at the Congress of Vienna formed the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, which once again included Belgium (they wanted a strong country). But there were divisions between the Belgians and the Dutch, and in 1830, Belgium rebelled and formed a separate kingdom.
The Netherlands remained neutral for most of the World Wars, but it was occupied by the Germans. 104,000 out of 112,000 Dutch Jews were killed (25,000 in one night in Rotterdam). Amsterdam lost most of its population, and many were reduced to eating tulip bulbs.
Princess Juliana of the Netherlands sought refuge in Ottawa with her two daughters (current Queen Beatrix was one of them) during the war. Juliana was pregnant, so when it came time to deliver her child, the Canadian parliament declared her suite at the Civic Hospital “extraterritorial”, to ensure the Dutch citizenship of her child. A day later, the Dutch flag was flown on the Peace Tower (the only time in history that a foreign flag has waved atop the Canadian Parliament Buildings). The Canadian Army was also responsible for liberating much of the Netherlands. Today, Canada and the Netherlands have a special bond (symbolized every May during the Tulip Festival).
After the war, the Netherlands decided to leave behind its staunch independence, and forged closer bonds with its neighbours in order to protect itself in future. It established Benelux with its former partners, Belgium and Luxembourg, in 1946, and in 1951, all three countries joined France, Italy and West Germany to form the European Coal and Steel Community (the precursor to the 1957 European Union).
Today, its trade industry is still flourishing (Rotterdam is the biggest port in Europe), and it is still known for its tolerance.
SOCIAL TOLERANCE
They were the first:
...to legalize cannabis (in 1976)
... to legalize prescriptions of medicinal marijuana
... to legalize euthanasia (in 2000)
... to legalize same-sex marriage (in 2001)
-The Netherlands is also very permissive of immigration; during the Spanish Inquisition, the Reformation, and World Wars, many other nationalities who were being persecuted fled to the Netherlands.
FLOWERS
The Dutch rank third worldwide in value of agricultural exports, behind the US and France, with exports earning $55 billion annually. A significant portion of these exports are derived from fresh-cut plants, flowers, and bulbs, with the Netherlands being the world’s largest exporter of flowers (two-thirds of the world's total).
(Incidentally, The Netherlands also exports a quarter of all world tomatoes, and one-third of the world's exports of peppers and cucumbers).
Keukenhof Park, in Lisse, is the largest flower garden in the world, with approximately 7 million bulbs planted annually. It was designed to showcase The Netherlands’ flowers.Flower-growing in country began in the late 19th century. Conditions in The Netherlands are perfect for flower cultivation: low lands, very wet and fertile.
The Netherlands is known for its tulips, although they actually originated, and were named, in Persia (brought to Europe by the Ottomans in the mid 16th-century). They were seen as status symbols and their names were prefixed with titles such as “Admiral”
Tulipmania was a period in the Dutch Golden Age during which contract prices for bulbs of the recently introduced tulip reached extraordinarily high levels and then suddenly collapsed. At the peak of tulip mania in February 1637, tulip contracts sold for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. Goods exchanged for a single bulb: four fat oxen, eight fat swine, twelve fat sheep, two hogsheads of wine, four tuns of beer, two tons of butter, 1000 lb of cheese, a complete bed, a suit of clothes and a silver drinking cup.
The term "tulip mania" is now used metaphorically to refer to any large economic bubble (like the dotcom bubble).
WINDMILLS
There are 1180 windmills around the country. They helped to remove excess water from lowlands and helped with agriculture. They have been around since the 13th century, and in the 19th century, there were around 9000 windmills.
CLOGS
Clogs have been worn in The Netherlands for around 500 years. Wooden shoes help to keep the feet dry, so they were used by peasants who worked in fields. They inspired the modern CROC shoe, adapted from a plastic clog to be worn in spas.
DRUGS
While most countries believe that drugs should be outlawed, Dutch officials take the point of view that they cannot eliminate drug use entirely, so they might as well control them. The Netherlands has the second highest drug related public expenditure per capita of all countries in the EU (after Sweden).75% of their expenditure is law enforcement, and 25% is health/social care. There is an enforced distinction between “soft” and “hard” drugs; the Dutch believe that smoking pot is a victimless crime, but doing hard drugs is a different story. The Dutch are also very hard on importing/selling drugs, and the amount that a person can sell is regulated, with a zero tolerance policy for drug crimes (on par with Sweden).
The number of drug-related deaths in The Netherlands is among the lowest in Europe. Magic mushrooms and all hallucinogenic drugs were deemed illegal in 2008 (but can still be bought in smartshops, shops that sell drug-related paraphernalia).
COFFEE SHOPS
Introduced in the 1970s to separate hard and soft drug use. They are only allowed to sell cannabis, and not allowed to sell alcohol. They are not allowed to sell more than 5 grams at a time. Coffeeshops are also not allowed to advertise, so many of them will have reggae-inspired flags or paraphernalia outside the shop. There is an on-going contradiction, as a coffeeshop is allowed to sell cannabis, but not to buy it: "The front door is open, but the backdoor is illegal." In 2008, the Dutch government decided that coffeeshops would no longer be allowed within a radius of 250 m of schools.
DUTCH PEOPLE:
-The Dutch are among the tallest in the world, with an average height of about 6'1" for adult males and 5;6" for adult females
-A third of Dutch people smoke tobacco. Holland has a long tradition as a smoking culture, being among the first to import the tobacco plant from the New World. (Strangely enough, the Dutch are also among the healthiest people in the world).
-Dutch people leave their windows open all the time, they don’t mind people watching them. Incidentally, the TV show “Big Brother” originated in The Netherlands.
BIKES
Due to excellent cycling conditions (particularly the flat land, although it is also quite windy and wet!), plus decreasing parking spaces, limited access to cars in cities and strict fines for motorists in collisions, nearly a third of all journeys in the Netherlands are made by bicycle. The country's 16 million people own 16 million bikes, and Amsterdam is known as the most bike-friendly city in the world. The Dutch team brought bicycles to Vancouver for the Olympics to promote healthy living, but the Canadians had to put an import tax on them.
Food and Drink
-Cheese (Gouda and Edam)
-Fries and Mayo
-Heineken, Amstel and Grolsch beer
-Salted herrings are eaten as a snack
DUTCH ARTISTS
-Rembrandt
-Vincent Van Gogh
Famous Dutchies: Erasmus from Rotterdam; Descartes’ major work was done in The Netherlands; Anne Frank, Van Halen
QUIRKY FACTS:
-Rotterdam has the biggest port in Europe (used to be the World’s Busiest Port, until Shanghai took over)
-English rivalry with The Netherlands especially during the period of the Anglo-Dutch Wars, gave rise to several phrases that promoted certain negative stereotypes of Dutch people as ungenerous and selfish: “Dutch courage”, “Dutch oven”, Dutch uncle and Dutch wife.
LANGUAGE TIPS
Hello: Hello
Goodbye: Tot ziens
Please: Alstublieft
Thank You: Dank u
Excuse Me/Sorry: Verontschuldig Mij/Droevig
Yes: Ja
No: Geen
Do you speak English?: Spreekt u Engels?
Where is?: Waar is?
How much?: Hoe veel?
One: Een
Two: Twee
Three: Drie
Four: Vier
Five: Vijf
Water: Water
Beer: Bier
Wine: Wijn
Cheers!: Cheers!
Where are my clogs?: Var zien min klumpen?
Watch out for cyclists!: pass op for feetsters!
I am drunk!: Ek ben drong can!
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