Netherlands (terminology)

The Netherlands are known under various terms both in English and other languages. These are used to describe the different overlapping geographical, linguistic and political areas of the Netherlands. This is often a source of confusion for people from other parts of the world.

The Netherlands

The Netherlands literally means "low countries". It is the conventional short form used to describe the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Formally, this encompasses the European part of the Netherlands and its overseas dependencies, although usually it is used to describe the European part. The current Dutch dependencies are the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. Historically Suriname and Indonesia were also part of Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Notably the Netherlands is amongst a small number of countries, who have a singular name for their country, while the English uses a plural form. This plural convention is actually an archaic term, referring to the period 1581 to 1795 when the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands was a loose federation comprised of seven provinces. Interestingly, the term used in The Netherlands itself, is singular, namely: "Nederland" (low country).

Holland

Holland is commonly used as a synonym for the Netherlands as a whole, while actually it just refers to the central-western part of the country. This part consists of two of the country's twelve provinces, namely North Holland and South Holland.

Historically Holland was the most powerful province of the Netherlands: the counts of Holland were also counts of Hainaut, Flanders and Zeeland between the 1200s and 1400s; during the period of the Dutch Republic the stadholder of the Holland was the most powerful politician in the Netherlands, who often also was stadholder in other provinces; the cities in Holland were important trading cities, for instance six cities in Holland made up the Dutch East India Company. Still the two provinces, making up Holland, are very strong: they house 37% of the Dutch population.

The name 'Holland' is used in the Netherlands as well, especially in relation to soccer, where "Holland!" is shouted out loud by Dutch soccer fans. Furthermore Dutch tour operators and tourist information centres use the term, because the name 'Holland' is better known worldwide.

The name Holland ultimately stems from "holt land" ("wooded land"). A popular, but incorrect, fake etymology holds that it is derived from "hol land" ("hollow land"), inspired by the low-lying geography of the region.

The confusion between a part and its whole, called pars pro toto in poetry, often happens in country names, see for instance the use of England for the United Kingdom and Russia for the Soviet Union.

Dutch

Dutch is the term used to describe both the inhabitants of the Netherlands as well as its language. Dutch is not only spoken in the Netherlands, but also in Flanders, parts of northern France (around Dunkirk) Surinam and the Dutch Antilles.

The English word "Dutch" is a cognate to the Dutch word dietsch and the German word Deutsch. All these words have the same etymological origin. Both these terms derive from what in Common West Germanic was known as theodisca, which meant "(language) of the (common) people". During the early Middle Ages, the elite mostly used Latin and the common people used their local languages.

Low Countries

The term the Low Countries is often used to refer to the Netherlands, while it actually refers to the historical region de Nederlanden: the countries on low-lying land around the delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers. Which very roughly corresponds to the countries the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Sometimes this region is called Whole-Netherlands.

This region was united three times, in the Seventeen Provinces as a personal union during the 16th century, in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands between 1815 and 1830 under King William I, and as the BeNeLux a customs union founded in 1944.

Other languages

In most languages, the name for the country literally means 'low lands' or is a transliteration of 'Nederland' or 'Holland'.

The name "Holland", or derivations of it, is commonly used for the Netherlands in many languages. Sometimes it is even the official name of the country, e.g., Holland (הולנד) (Hebrew), hélán (荷兰) (Chinese), and Oranda (オランダ) (Japanese), Holandia (Polish), Olanda (Romanian).

Other countries use a literal translation of "the Netherlands". This often becomes indistinguishable from "the Low Countries", e.g., die Niederlande (German), les Pays-Bas (French) Los Países Bajos (Spanish) I Paesi Bassi (Italian) Os Países Baixos (Portuguese), Yr Iseldiroedd (Welsh)

Proposed Solutions

Some solutions among some English-speakers have been proposed to solve the confusion surrounding the country's name. One could refer to residents of the Netherlands as "Netherlanders" to call the language "Netherlandish", use the adjective "Netherlands" or "Netherlandic". Although these last terms are not very pleasing to the ear, they are the most accurate of the proposed terms, and are more similar to how residents refer to themselves ("Nederlanders")..