Welcome to the Netherlands Portal
Welkom bij het Nederlandportaal!
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The Netherlands, informally Holland, is a country located 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...)
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![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
- ... that, of the three presidents of the Chamber of Dutch Culture, two were arrested and one was assassinated?
- ... that in 1969, the first women's strike for equal pay in the Netherlands was called in a cigar factory in Nieuwe Pekela?
- ... that when England moved to take over the Dutch colony of New Netherland in 1664, a delegation met at Stuyvesant Farm to negotiate the Articles of Surrender?
- ... that Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis was a semi-professional snowboarder in New Zealand before she decided to pursue a career in the arts?
- ... that the flag of Sint Maarten depicts the friendship monument delineating the boundary between the Dutch and French sections of the island?
- ... that the Dutch campaign OneLove inspired football captains to wear rainbow armbands at the 2020 and 2022 European Championships?
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