Welcome to Holland
Dec 17, 2009
The Netherlands or Holland
The Netherlands is a kingdom. Its official name is the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It consists of the Netherlands itself and the six islands of Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. The country’s name in Dutch is Nederland, meaning ‘low country’ and referring to the fact that much of the land is at or below sea level. Today the Netherlands is also called ‘Holland’, a name that is derived from the names of the two western coastal provinces, North and South Holland, that were the most developed and wealthiest parts of the country in the seventeenth century and played a dominant role in the country’s history.