Based on map by DigoPaul, the Netherlands is one of the four autonomous countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The European country borders Germany & Belgium and has a long North Sea coast. The landscape is rather flat and unspectacular, but thanks to exciting cities and a lot of atmosphere, it still offers some… Read More »
The center-right coalition – formed by the Christian Democrats of the CDA (Christen-Democratish Appel), by the liberals of the VVD (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie) and led by the Christian Democrat A. Van Agt – ruled the country from January 1978 to the elections in May 1981. In these consultations the CDA – born in… Read More »
Queen Wilhelmina and the government, having taken refuge in London, returned to their homeland in 1945. In 1946 the Social Democratic Party merged with the left wing of the resistance movement of W. Schermerhorn and with other groups and took the name of Partij van de Arbeid (PVDA). Together with the Katholische Volkspartij (KV), it… Read More »
Before 1579 Before 1579, when with the Union of Utrecht the republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands arose, the events of the territory constituting the current kingdom were linked to those of Belgium: both territories were designated in the Late Middle Ages with the common name of Flanders or, in a broad sense,… Read More »
Demographics and economic geography Western European state. As of 1 November 2014, the population of the Netherlands amounted, according to an estimate by the National Statistics Office, to 16,902,103 residents (16,802,463 residents, According to an estimate by UNDESA, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2014), continuing the upward trend, albeit slight, of recent… Read More »
Machiavelli in the Republic of the United Provinces. Between the end of the 16th century. and the middle of the 18th there is a phase of intense activity of authors, translators and editors interested in the Machiavelli ‘phenomenon’. This phase coincides with the liberation from the Spanish crown, the consolidation of a republican regime and… Read More »
Population The demographic dynamics of PB (15. 678. 000 residents, According to a UN estimate, in 1998) has experienced in recent years a gradual decline in the growth rate, due in part to a reduction in the natural growth rate (3, 5 ‰ in 1997), partly due to a contraction in the immigration flow. The… Read More »
The Netherlands, which extend over an area of 33,937 km 2 (41,526 with inland waters), remain the most densely populated country in Europe (446 residents / km 2 in 1992), followed at a considerable distance by Belgium (328 residents / km 2). Over the last twenty years, the Netherlands population has increased by over 2… Read More »
Land use has the highest percentage (34.9) assigned to permanent meadows and pastures; arable land accounts for 22%, while forests and woods account for 8.1%. Agricultural property is generally small with a prevalence of farms owning an average of 10 ha; a tenth part of the cultivated area is divided into plots of less than… Read More »
Netherlands A plain below sea level The current idea of the Netherlands – large tulip fields, windmills, dams, canals and lots of water everywhere – is not far off the mark. A country at the top of economic, social, cultural development, which has preserved many of its traditional features, ancient cities, orderly and elegant, a… Read More »
Between the mid-sixteenth and the end of the eighteenth century, the Netherlands became a major maritime power, assuming a leading position in Europe. They extended their influence through a large system of colonies which, at its peak, included the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia, Sri Lanka and some Indian colonies) and the Dutch West Indies (made… Read More »
The security and defense policy of the Netherlands is traditionally linked to US foreign policy. The country has supported the US in the Korean War, in the First Gulf War, in the mission in Iraq and in the most recent one in Afghanistan. In the summer of 2003, the Netherlands sent a contingent of 1,600… Read More »
Netherlands State of ‘ Europe West, the western end of the Lowland Germanicus. It overlooks the North Sea and includes the mouths of the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt. The territory, constantly evolving in the incessant struggle to gain ground to the waters, has a roughly quadrangular shape: the northern and western sides are formed by… Read More »
THE DRIED UP TERRITORIES. – The cordon of the coastal dunes was divided and largely surpassed by the sea in historical times: therefore, the surfaces periodically flooded by marine waters (wadden) were very extensive. The work of man, initially with a purely defensive character, was undertaken through the erection of large embankments (terpen) that the… Read More »
The Netherlands is among the top twenty countries in the world economy for its size and GDP per capita. According to recent government studies, the internal distribution of wealth would be among the most unfair in Europe: 10% of the population would in fact hold 61% of the wealth (a figure far from that of… Read More »
Population and society The history of the Netherlands, urban architecture, agriculture and the fate of the Dutch population are closely linked to the morphology of the territory and the delicate balance between land and sea that distinguishes it. 25% of the surface of the Dutch territory is below sea level, while 50% is less than… Read More »
From William III to the Napoleonic period During the First English War (1652-54), the defeats of O. Cromwell favored the Orange. The disastrous outcome of the war forced the States-General to vote the Act of execution, with which they undertook never to elect the Orange state-holder of their province. The Navigation Act (1651) only partially… Read More »
The Dutch music scene of the first half of the 20th century was dominated by a group of composers who promoted an effective work of renewal of the national tradition. Particularly noteworthy was the activity of S. Dresden (1881-1957), of H. Andriessen (1892-1981) and, above all, of W. Pijper (1894-1947), as regards both the composition… Read More »
Of the Flemish masters who in the 15th and 16th centuries. they left a fundamental imprint in the history of European music, only a few were born within the borders of today’s Netherlands. Among these are the polyphonists J. Obrecht, who together with J. Ockeghem is the greatest exponent of the second Flemish period in… Read More »
In the 1960s, H. Mulisch, one of the most original and innovative figures of Dutch prose, made his debut, while the activity of a large generation of writers began who, while remaining tied to traditional fiction, showed that they had understood the spirit and themes of new times. H. Haasse, internationally renowned narrator and essayist,… Read More »
Two cosmopolitan intellectuals, of transnational orientation but strong Dutch cultural roots, have confirmed themselves on the literary scene of the last decade, in Dutch and in translation: Cees Nooteboom (b.1933) and Arnon Grunberg (b.1971), both almost always travelling. A long career is celebrated in Nooteboom, of the Borgesian school. Anthologized and commented by Rüdiger Safranski… Read More »
Without a doubt in the post-war period Dutch and Flemish literature, despite the different socio-cultural realities, tend to unite, making their division increasingly artificial in the future, and aspire to rise to a European level, participating, in some cases, to international currents. In the Dutch Netherlands literature we must first of all note a notable… Read More »
William V became more and more the symbol of conservatism; after an attempt by the patriots to seize power due to the intervention of the Prussian army, the supporters of the reforms, having abandoned the Republic, took refuge in France, where they participated in the Revolution. At their request, revolutionary France waged war on the… Read More »
From 1946 to the end of the 1950s the government remained in a coalition formed by the Social Democratic Party, which after the war had merged with the left wing of the resistance movement of W. Schermerhorn and with other groups taking the name of Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA), and from the Katholische Volkspartij… Read More »
From the Middle Ages to the 16th century Before the establishment of the Republic of the United Provinces (1579), art and architecture reflect the historical events and influences to which the Netherlands was subject. In the Romanesque age, in Maastricht, dependent on the bishopric of Liège, architecture was linked to the Mosan forms; in various… Read More »
The 18th and 19th centuries In the architectural field, the French influence became predominant thanks also to the presence of D. Marot, who emigrated there after 1685 (The Hague, Stadhuis, facade of the Royal Library, etc.); later the neoclassical style spread widely until the first quarter of the 19th century, when under the impulse of… Read More »
During the war, Dutch painting and graphics had to slow down. On the post-war generation, the only figure who exerted a real influence is H. Werkman, a typographic artist who, under the occupation, continued to print his sheets with combinations of letters, numbers and figurative forms. In the last month of the occupation Werkman was… Read More »
Important innovations in Dutch art occurred towards the end of the 1960s. Spontaneously formed youth political groups (Provo’s, Kabouters, Dolle Mina’s), which aspired to a reversal of the values of the establishment, exerted a great influence on the artists. Happenings, performances, provocative television shows such as those produced by W. de Ridder (b. 1942) and… Read More »
Architecture During the 1980s, the Netherlands witnessed the consolidation of new orientations, common to international architectural culture. The most fruitful line of current research, stimulated by widespread urban renewal operations, is based on a critical comparison with the various experiences of the past and above all with the research and experimentation of the modern and… Read More »
Reference country of international culture for its ability to transform the territory by combining pragmatism and experimentation, even the Netherlands have suffered the recent economic crisis, registering a rethinking of strategies in the cultural field, with the downsizing of important institutions such as the Berlage Institute and the Netherlands architecture institute, and in terms of… Read More »