Official name: Kingdom of the Netherlands
Capital city: Amsterdam
Internet country code: .nl
Flag description: Three equal horizontal bands of red (top), white, and blue; similar to the flag of Luxembourg, which uses a lighter blue and is longer; one of the oldest flags in constant use, originating with William I, Prince of Orange, in the latter half of the 16th century
National anthem: “Wilhelmus”
Geographical description: Western Europe, bordering the North Sea, between Belgium and Germany
Total area: 16,485 sq. mi. (41,526 sq. km.)
Climate: Temperate; marine; cool summers and mild winters
Nationality: noun: Dutchman(men), Dutchwoman(women); adjective: Dutch
Population: 16,570,613 (July 2007 CIA est.)
Ethnic groups: Dutch 83%, other 17% (of which 9% are non-Western origin, mainly Turks, Moroccans, Antilleans, Surinamese, and Indonesians)
Languages spoken: Dutch, Frisian
Religions: Roman Catholic 31%, Dutch Reformed 13%, Calvinist 7%, Muslim 5.5%, other 2.5%, none 41%
(also Low Countries), during the Middle Ages, a region in northwestern Europe, lying between the North Sea and the Ardennes, in the basins of the Rhine, Maas, and Scheldt rivers. It is the area today occupied by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, and a small part of northeastern France.
Prior to the 14th and 15th centuries the Netherlands were not a unified political entity but were divided into many feudal domains. Foremost among them were the duchies of Brabant, Limburg, Luxemburg, and Gelder; the counties of Flanders, Artois, Hainaut, and Holland; the bishopric of Utrecht; and the seignories of Zeeland, Friesland, and Groningen. Most of these lands were first united during the 14th and 15th centuries by the Burgundian dukes, becoming part of an extensive Burgundian state. After the state disintegrated, the region came under Hapsburg rule at the end of the 15th century.
Under Charles V, Friesland and several other lands were annexed to the Hapsburg possessions in the Netherlands. In 1548 all the Netherlands, constituting the “Burgundian circle” of the Holy Roman Empire, were proclaimed to be one indivisible group of lands comprising 17 provinces. Although sovereignty over the Netherlands rested with the Hapsburg rulers, the region was administered by vicegerents, called stadholders, under whom was the State Council consisting for the most part of members of the native aristocracy. The highest representative body of the estates was the States General. Most of the central administrative bodies were concentrated in Brussels.
A number of factors combined to make the Netherlands an important center of Western European culture and learning: the early and intensive development of cities, especially in Flanders and Brabant; the cities’ strong international ties; the clash between the feudal-chivalric order and the merchant-artisan socioeconomic system, which was steadily growing stronger (becoming a bourgeois system during the 15th and 16th centuries); and the Netherlands’ position between France and Germany, between Romance and Germanic influences. Many important medieval philosophers were natives of the Netherlands, notably Siger of Brabant, Henry of Ghent, William of Moerbeke, Godfrey of Fontaines, Jan van Ruysbroeck, Geert Groote, and Thomas à Kempis, as well as the leader of northern European humanism during the Renaissance, Erasmus of Rotterdam. Literature in both French and Netherlandic flourished. A school of architecture and art and a school of music developed, whose importance extended far beyond the borders of the Netherlands. Despite the vestiges of political fragmentation and the lack of national-linguistic homogeneity, the Netherlands culture is generally regarded as a unified whole until the late 16th century.
In 1556, after the disintegration of Charles V’s empire, the Netherlands passed to the Spanish king Philip II. The early development of capitalist relations in the Netherlands and economic, political, and religious oppression by Spanish absolutism precipitated an early bourgeois revolution. After the revolution, which was victorious only in the northern part of the country, the north and south separated. A sovereign state—the bourgeois Republic of the United Provinces (Dutch Republic)—was formed in the north. The south, which remained under Spanish rule, came to be called the Spanish Netherlands, and when the region passed to Austria after the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14), it was called the Austrian Netherlands. In 1814–15, at the Congress of Vienna, both parts of the former Netherlands were united to form the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in which the southern provinces were under Dutch domination. As a result of the Belgian revolution of 1830, the southern Netherlands formed an independent state, called Belgium, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands became the official name of the northern Netherlands.
A. N. CHISTOZVONOV