A brief lesson in geography

Holland and The Netherlands

Welcome to the great nation of Holland, where the tulips grow, the windmills turn, the breakfast is chocolatey, the people industrious, and the sea tries to drown it all.

Except, this country isn't Holland. It's time for the differ­ence between Holland, The Netherlands and a whole lot more.

The correct name for this tulip growing, windmill building, hagelslag eating, container ship moving, ocean con­quering nation is The Netherlands. But confusion is understandable, the general region been renamed a lot over a thousand years, including as:

• The Dutch Republic
• The United States of Belgium
• The Kingdom of Holland

But it's not just history that makes this country's name confusing, because the Netherlands is divided into twelve provinces:

1. Groningen
2. Drenthe
3. Overijssel
4. Gelderland
5. Limburg
6. Brabant
7. Zeeland
   which is the Zeeland that makes New Zeeland new
8. Friesland
   with adorable little hearts on its flag
9. Flevoland
10. Utrecht
    and here's the confusion
11. Noord Holland
12. Zuid Holland

The last two provinces make calling the Netherlands Holland like calling the United States Dakota. Though unlike the Dakotas, which are mostly empty, save for the occasional Jackalope, the two Hollands are the most populated provinces and have some of the biggest attractions like Amsterdam and Keukenhof.

Chances are if it's Dutch, and you've heard of it, it's in one of the Hollands. Even the government's travel website for the country is holland.com - officially because it sounds friendlier, but unofficially it's probably what people are actually searching for.

Confusion continues because people who live in the Hollands are called Hollanders, but all citizens of the Netherlands are called Dutch as is their language. But in Dutch they say: Nederlands sprekende Nederlanders in Nederland, which sounds like they'd rather we call them Netherlanders speaking Netherlandish.

Meanwhile, next door in Germany, they're Deutsche sprechen Deutsch in Deutschland. Which sounds like they'd rather be called Dutch.

This linguistic confusion is why Americans call the Pennsylvania Dutch Dutch even though they're Germans.

To review:

• this country is The Netherlands
• its people are Dutch
• they speak Dutch
• there is no country called Holland, but
• there are provinces of North and South Holland

Got it?

Great, because it's about to get more complicated.

The Kingdom of the Netherlands

The Netherlands is part of a kingdom with the same name: The Kingdom of the Netherlands which is headed by the Dutch Royal Family.

The Kingdom of the Netherlands contains three more countries and to find them we must sail from the icy North Sea to the Caribbean and

• Aruba
• Curaçao
• Sint Maarten

These are no territories, but self-governing countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and as such they have their own governments, and their own currencies.

But why does the Kingdom of the Netherlands reach to the Caribbean anyway?

Because, EMPIRE.

In the 1600s the Dutch, always looking to expand business, laid their hands on every valuable port they could. For a time, America's East Coast was New Netherland with its capital city of New Amsterdam. There was New Zealand, as men­tioned previously, and nearby, the king of the islands, New Holland. Though the empire is gone, these three Caribbean nations remain.

And while four countries in one kingdom, isn't unheard of, it doesn't stop there, because the country of the Netherlands also extends its borders to the Caribbean and three more islands:

• Bonaire
• Saba
• Sint Eustatius

The islands Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius are not countries in a king­dom, but are cities of the Country of the Netherlands, and they look the part. Resi­dents of these far-flung cities vote in elec­tions for the Dutch government just as any Hollander would. Though, weirdly, they don't belong to any province and they don't use the Dutch currency of Euros, they use Dollars instead.

It's kind of like if Hawaii wasn't a state, but tech­ni­cally part of the District of Columbia, all the while using the Yen.

These cities of the Country of the Netherlands and these coun­tries in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, together are known as the Dutch Caribbean. And their citizens are Dutch citizens. Which, because the Kingdom of the Netherlands is a member of the European Union, means these Dutch Caribbeans are also Europeans.

So in the end, there are:

• six Caribbean islands
• four countries
• twelve provinces
• two Hollands
• two Netherlands
• one kingdom

All Dutch.