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Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in North-West Europe and with territories in the Caribbean. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and share maritime borders with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. The capital is Amsterdam and the seat of government is The Hague. The Netherlands in its entirety is often referred to as Holland, although North and South Holland are actually only two of its twelve provinces. The word Dutch is used to refer to the people, the language, and anything pertaining to the Netherlands. This lexical difference between the noun and the adjective is an attribute of the English language that does not exist in the Dutch language. The adjective 'Dutch' is derived from the language that was spoken in the area, called 'Diets', which equals Middle Dutch. The Netherlands was one of the first parliamentary democracies. Among other affiliations the country is a founding member of the European Union (EU), NATO, OECD and WTO. With Belgium and Luxembourg it forms the Benelux economic union. The country is host to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and five international courts: the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Court and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The first four are situated in The Hague as is the EU's criminal intelligence agency Europol and judicial co-operation agency Euro just. This has led to the city being dubbed "the world's legal capital". The Netherlands has a capitalist market-based economy, ranking 15th of 157 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. The Netherlands is a geographically low-lying country, with about 25% of its area and 21% of its population located below sea level, with 50% of its land lying less than one meter above sea level. Significant land area has been gained through land reclamation and preserved through an elaborate system of polders and dikes. Much of the Netherlands is formed by the estuary of three important European rivers, which together with their distributaries form the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta. Most of the country is very flat, with the exception of foothills in the far southeast and several low-hill ranges in the central parts. The BES islands, or Caribbean Netherlands, became part of the Netherlands proper after the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles on 10 October 2010.

Netherlands Regions
Limburg - Netherlands

Limburg
Limburg is the southernmost of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands. It is located in the southeastern part of the country and bordered by the province of Gelderland to the north, Germany to the ea... (More)

 
 
North Brabant - Netherlands

North Brabant
Brabant or officially named North Brabant is a province of the Netherlands, located in the south of the country, bordered by Belgium in the south, the Meuse River (Maas) in the north, Limburg in the e... (More)

 
 
North Holland - Netherlands

North Holland
North Holland is a province situated on the North Sea in the northwest part of the Netherlands. The provincial capital is Haarlem and its largest city is Amsterdam. North Holland is a broad peninsula ... (More)

 
 
Overijssel - Netherlands

Overijssel
Overijssel is a province of the Netherlands in the central eastern part of the country. The region has a NUTS classification of NL21. The province's name means "Lands across river IJssel". The capital... (More)

 
 
South Holland - Netherlands

South Holland
South Holland is a province situated on the North Sea in the western part of the Netherlands. The provincial capital is The Hague and its largest city is Rotterdam. The province is the most populated ... (More)

 
 
Utrecht - Netherlands

Utrecht
Utrecht is the smallest province of the Netherlands, and is located in the center of the country. It is bordered by the Eemmeer in the north, Gelderland in the east, the river Rhine in the south, Sout... (More)

 
 
Zeeland - Netherlands

Zeeland
Zeeland, also called Zealand in English and Zeelandic, is a province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the south-west of the country, consists of a number of islands (hence its name, meanin... (More)

 
 

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