{"id":6257,"date":"2019-09-16T11:53:48","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T11:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=6257"},"modified":"2019-09-16T12:00:34","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T12:00:34","slug":"why-is-the-netherlands-called-holland-when-it-shouldnt-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/why-is-the-netherlands-called-holland-when-it-shouldnt-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Is The Netherlands Called Holland When It Shouldn’t Be?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, you may or may not have been wondering about this, but I certainly have. The Netherlands and Holland are often used interchangeably all over the world, yet in Dutch, Nederland\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Holland\u00a0<\/em>are two distinct terms. It’s weird. Let’s figure out why.<\/p>\n

What’s the difference?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Here’s the thing.<\/p>\n

Nederland\u00a0<\/em>is the whole country of the Netherlands.\u00a0Holland\u00a0<\/em>is only one of the 12 provinces of the country. Here’s the difference:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Netherlands is green, Holland is red. These days, Holland consists of the two provinces Noord-Holland<\/em> (North Holland) and Zuid-Holland<\/em> (South Holland) (Image by author)<\/p><\/div>\n

So really, calling the Netherlands “Holland” is a “pars pro toto”, a\u00a0stijlfiguur\u00a0<\/em>(figure of speech) that means “part for the whole” in Latin. So you’re using a part to refer to the whole. A word like “headcount” does that too. You’re counting people, who are more than just heads.<\/p>\n

And like that, the Netherlands is more than just Holland.<\/p>\n

It’s like saying Pennsylvania when referring to the United States. Weird, right?<\/p>\n

So why do we do this?<\/p>\n

A little bit of necessary history<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/a>

The Repuliek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden<\/em> (Republic of the Seven United Netherlands) in the 18th century. As you can see, Holland was one large province back then, whereas it is now split in a Northern and Southern province (Image from Commons.wikimedia.org, public domain)<\/p><\/div>\n

First things first.\u00a0Nederland\u00a0<\/em>is somewhat older Dutch that basically means “low land”. Officially,\u00a0Nederland\u00a0<\/em>is one of the countries of the\u00a0Koninkrijk der Nederlanden\u00a0<\/em>(Kingdom of the Netherlands), which also includes the Dutch Caribbean islands Aruba, Cura\u00e7ao and Sint Maarten. The main seat of the\u00a0Koninkrijk\u00a0<\/em>is in\u00a0Nederland<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But where does that name come from? In the early Middle Ages, the different areas that are now\u00a0Nederland\u00a0<\/em>were not yet united. In the following\u00a0eeuwen\u00a0<\/em>(centuries), the different areas began working together more and were doing quite good economically. In the 15th\u00a0eeuw<\/em>, the word\u00a0Nederlanden\u00a0<\/em>(Low Lands) became common, but only as a distinction to higher locations. Indeed, the Netherlands are famously low.\u00a0Nederlanden\u00a0<\/em>came from the original German area\u00a0Niderlant,\u00a0<\/em>an area between Maas <\/em>(Meuse) and Rijn <\/em>(Rhine). These, and other rivers, flow into the\u00a0Noordzee\u00a0<\/em>(North Sea) through the Netherlands. Because of these different areas of\u00a0Niderlant<\/em>, land between rivers, the area was denoted as\u00a0lower lands<\/strong>. However, even then, the Dutch used\u00a0Nederland\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0de Nederlanden\u00a0<\/em>interchangeably. In French, the area was called Les Pays-Bas\u00a0<\/em>(“The Low Lands”) and in German as\u00a0Niederlande\u00a0<\/em>(Low Land). The English called it the “Low Countries”.<\/p>\n

The Dutch escaped the Habsburg rule at the end of the Tachtigjarige Oorlog\u00a0<\/em>(Eighty Years’ War) in 1648 and formed the Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden\u00a0<\/em>(Republic of the Seven United Netherlands). Of these seven Netherlands, Holland became the strongest by far, especially during the\u00a0Gouden Eeuw\u00a0<\/em>(Golden Age).<\/a> And as the\u00a0Republiek<\/em>, the Netherlands also became prominent on the international stage, again, with Holland easily outweighing the other\u00a0Nederlanden<\/em>. So it is unsurprising that\u00a0Holland\u00a0<\/em>became a pars pro toto for\u00a0Nederland\u00a0<\/em>as a whole in many countries.<\/p>\n

How do different languages handle it?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Image by Jason Leung at Unsplash.com<\/p><\/div>\n

When referring to\u00a0Nederland<\/em>, languages tend to take either of three paths:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. They refer to\u00a0Nederland\u00a0<\/em>as a direct translation, e.g. the Germans with Die Niederlande;<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. They refer to\u00a0Holland<\/em> and then translate it, e.g. Hollandi\u00a0<\/em>in Icelandic, or\u00a0H\u00e9l\u00e1n\u00a0<\/em>in Pinyin Chinese;<\/li>\n
  3. They refer to\u00a0Nederlanden\u00a0<\/em>and use a plural, e.g. the English t<\/em>he Netherlands\u00a0<\/em>or the French le<\/em>s Pays-Bas<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Considering the history above, it all makes sense that the country got known across the world under three different names. The languages of the countries closest to it refer to it as either the singular or plural Netherlands. More distant places probably got wind of this tiny place during the time of Holland’s dominance, and just went with the name they heard then.<\/p>\n

    Case in point: While Spain, ruler of the Netherlands during the\u00a0Tachtigjarige Oorlog<\/em>, refers to the country as\u00a0los Pa\u00edses Bajos<\/em>, Latin American countries primarily use\u00a0Holanda<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    If Pennsylvania had been the dominating state by far, perhaps now we would refer to the United States as Pennsylvania in some languages. We can speculate \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

    The Netherlands \/ the Netherlands is\/are<\/strong><\/h2>\n
    \"\"<\/a>

    Image by Luca Onniboni at Unsplash.com<\/p><\/div>\n

    Lastly, is the “the” that comes before Netherlands capitalized or not? You cannot really just say “Netherlands” without the article.<\/p>\n

    But no, it is not. So “the Netherlands” is always correct, unless you start a sentence with it, of course. It is just an article, similar to how you would say “the United States”.<\/p>\n

    Whether to use Netherlands as singular or plural, so “the Netherlands is” or “the Netherlands are”… Well, there’s some discussion about it<\/a>, but it strongly leans towards the singular “the Netherlands is”, referring to it as a state entity.<\/p>\n

    What do you call the Netherlands in your language? Have you ever been confused by this, or have had some interesting experiences using the two terms? Let me know in the comments below!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

    So, you may or may not have been wondering about this, but I certainly have. The Netherlands and Holland are often used interchangeably all over the world, yet in Dutch, Nederland\u00a0and\u00a0Holland\u00a0are two distinct terms. It’s weird. Let’s figure out why. What’s the difference? Here’s the thing. Nederland\u00a0is the whole country of the Netherlands.\u00a0Holland\u00a0is only one…<\/p>\n

    Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":6270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3590,27711],"tags":[65,5,10149,6472],"class_list":["post-6257","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dutch-language","category-dutch-vocabulary-2","tag-etymology","tag-geography","tag-netherlands","tag-place-names"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6257"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6276,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6257\/revisions\/6276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}