Portal:Netherlands
Welcome to the Netherlands Portal
Welkom bij het Nederlandportaal!
The Netherlands, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands consists of twelve provinces; it borders Germany to the east and Belgium to the south, with a North Sea coastline to the north and west. It shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany, and Belgium. The official language is Dutch, with West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland. Dutch, English, and Papiamento are official in the Caribbean territories.
The Netherlands has been a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a unitary structure since 1848. The country has a tradition of pillarisation (separation of citizens into groups by religion and political beliefs) and a long record of social tolerance, having legalised prostitution and euthanasia, along with maintaining a liberal drug policy. The Netherlands allowed women's suffrage in 1919 and was the first country to legalise same-sex marriage in 2001. Its mixed-market advanced economy has the eleventh-highest per capita income globally. The Hague holds the seat of the States General, Cabinet, and Supreme Court. The Port of Rotterdam is the busiest in Europe. Schiphol is the busiest airport in the Netherlands, and the fourth busiest in Europe. Being a developed country, the Netherlands is a founding member of the European Union, Eurozone, G10, NATO, OECD, and WTO, as well as a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. It hosts intergovernmental organisations and international courts, many of which are in The Hague. (Full article...)
Selected biography
Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... that HMS Trent helped keep the Dutch in port by sending bogus signals to a non-existent fleet?
- ... that the Jewish cemetery in the Dutch city of Hoorn was cleared in 1968 to make room for a roadway, and the bodily remains and gravestones were moved to the public cemetery?
- ... that the 1961 Indonesian census was the country's first since 1930 and the first since gaining independence from the Netherlands?
- ... that five years after Ihsan Gürz died while in Dutch police custody, his father was convicted of swearing at a police officer who had been present at his arrest?
- ... that on 9 August 1673 a Dutch naval squadron reconquered New York from the English?
- ... that Dutch agriculturist Hermanus Johannes Lovink used a suitcase gramophone during his lectures?
Categories
Related portals
Featured content
Extended content
| ||
---|---|---|
This page gives an overview of all featured content () on Wikipedia related to the Netherlands. Featured articles
Featured lists
|
Things you can do
The Dutch Wikiportal is currently under construction. Help would be greatly appreciated!
See also:
Add yourself to the category of Wikipedians located in the Netherlands.
Wikiprojects
You are invited to participate in the WikiProject Netherlands, a WikiProject dedicated to developing and improving articles about the Netherlands. |