50 Fun Facts About Netherlands

How many provinces make up the Netherlands?

Beyond the European provinces, three Caribbean islands (Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba) are 'special municipalities' that belong to no province at all.

Which non-capital city is the seat of the Dutch government, parliament and Supreme Court?

Its formal Dutch name, 's-Gravenhage, means 'the count's enclosure', a nod to the hunting grounds of the medieval Counts of Holland.

Roughly what share of the Netherlands' land area lies below sea level?

Even so, the country's highest point is not in Europe at all: Mount Scenery on the Caribbean island of Saba rises 870 metres.

At about 322 metres, what is the highest point of the European Netherlands?

It sits at the Drielandenpunt, where the Dutch, Belgian and German borders meet, so you can stand in three countries in a few strides.

Which Netherlands province, established in 1986, was reclaimed from the former Zuiderzee?

Its capital, Lelystad, is named after Cornelis Lely, the engineer who designed the reclamation scheme; the province's eastern and southern polders form the world's largest artificial island.

When the 32 km Afsluitdijk sealed off the Zuiderzee in 1932, the salt inlet became which freshwater lake?

The dam runs from Den Oever to the village of Zurich, a name that has confused more than one traveller expecting Switzerland.

The Delta Works, a vast system of dams and storm-surge barriers, were commissioned in response to which disaster?

The flood struck on the night of 31 January 1953 and killed 1,836 people in the Netherlands, most of them in the south-west; the last major barrier was not finished until 1997.

The lowest point in the Netherlands, about 7 metres below sea level, lies in which polder?

It is near Nieuwerkerk aan den IJssel, just outside Rotterdam; the Beemster, by contrast, is a 17th-century polder on the UNESCO list.

The Netherlands sits at the mouths of the Rhine, the Maas and which third major European river?

The three rivers built the delta that makes up much of the country, and their reclaimed polders account for about half of its surface area.

What is unusual about the site of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, the Dutch hub airport?

Its lowest point is 3.4 metres below sea level, on the bed of the Haarlemmermeer, a lake drained in the 1850s.

Dutch cartographers named Tasman's discovery 'Nova Zeelandia' after which province?

Tasman himself had called the islands Staten Land, wrongly assuming they joined a landmass off South America.

What does the name 'Netherlands' literally mean?

The Dutch endonym Nederland says the same thing, and the country's flat, low-lying terrain is why so much of it needs dikes.

Which city's centre was destroyed by Luftwaffe bombing on 14 May 1940, prompting Dutch surrender?

Rebuilt with modern architecture, it is now home to Europe's busiest port and the Erasmus University, named after the humanist born there.

Batavia, the Asian headquarters of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), is today which city?

The VOC, chartered in 1602, was the first company whose shares were freely traded by the public; it went bankrupt and was dissolved in 1799.

William the Silent, leader of the Dutch Revolt, was shot dead by Balthasar Gérard in 1584 in which city?

He is regarded as the founding father of the nation, and the royal family is still buried in the city's Nieuwe Kerk today.

The first letters of the 15 stanzas of the Dutch national anthem, the 'Wilhelmus', spell out what?

The song is written as a first-person monologue by William of Nassau himself, and dates to at least 1572, making it the oldest national anthem still in use.

Though it dates from the 1570s, when did the 'Wilhelmus' officially become the Dutch anthem?

It replaced 'Wien Neêrlands Bloed' on 10 May 1932, the same month the Afsluitdijk was finally closed.

The Eighty Years' War, ended by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, won Dutch independence from which crown?

The war had begun in 1568; the treaty finally gave the Dutch Republic formal recognition after decades of de facto independence.

In which year did the tulip-bulb speculation known as 'tulip mania' dramatically collapse?

At its peak a single Semper Augustus bulb sold for 10,000 guilders; it is usually described as the first recorded speculative bubble in history.

Dutch historians call 1672, the year of four invasions, the 'Rampjaar'. What does it mean?

The Dutch saved Holland by opening the Water Line and deliberately flooding their own land; the year is generally taken as the end of the Golden Age.

Anne Frank died in which concentration camp?

She was born in Frankfurt in 1929; her diary was first published in Dutch in 1947 as 'Het Achterhuis', and her father Otto was the family's only survivor.

What is the Dutch famine of 1944–45, caused by a German food embargo, known as?

Around 20,000 people died and city dwellers ate soup made from sugar beets and tulip bulbs; in the final days Allied bombers dropped 7.8 million kilograms of food in Operation Manna.

Operation Market Garden failed to capture the Rhine bridge in which Dutch city?

The plan expected Allied armour to cover 100 km from the Belgian border in 48 hours; Cornelius Ryan's account gave the battle its lasting label, 'A Bridge Too Far'.

Which American metropolis began life in the 1620s as the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam?

The English seized it in 1664 and renamed it after the Duke of York; Harlem and Brooklyn still carry the names of Dutch towns.

Signed in 1992, the treaty that created the European Union takes its name from which Dutch city?

It came into force on 1 November 1993 and set the timetable for the single currency; the Netherlands adopted the euro in 2002.

King's Day (Koningsdag), the national holiday marking the monarch's birthday, falls on which date?

Until 2013 it was Queen's Day on 30 April; it is also the one day the government allows street selling without a permit or VAT, hence the nationwide vrijmarkt flea market.

How does Sinterklaas traditionally arrive in the Netherlands each November?

He is said to sail up from the south, then ride a white horse across the rooftops; gifts are exchanged on 5 December, and he is the direct ancestor of Santa Claus.

The stroopwafel, two thin waffles glued with caramel syrup, was first made in which South Holland city?

One story credits baker Gerard Kamphuisen, who opened his shop there in 1810; the oldest known recipe dates from 1840.

Which North Holland city holds a famous Friday cheese market where deals end with a hand clap?

The city is also remembered for surviving a Spanish siege in 1573, giving rise to the saying 'Bij Alkmaar begint de victorie'.

How many windmills stand at Kinderdijk, the UNESCO-listed group built around 1740?

It is the largest concentration of old windmills in the country and has been on the World Heritage list since 1997.

Keukenhof, one of the world's largest flower gardens, is in which town?

About seven million bulbs are planted each year, yet the garden is open only for roughly eight weeks from mid-March to mid-May.

The Dutch red-white-blue evolved from the 16th-century Prinsenvlag, whose top band was which colour?

That is why the national colour is still worn on match days; the change to red made the Dutch flag the oldest tricolour in continuous use.

Which English word is borrowed from the Dutch 'koekje'?

The Dutch 'oe' became 'oo' in English, just as 'baas' became 'boss' and 'vrijbuiter' became 'freebooter'.

West Frisian is a co-official language in which Dutch province?

It is closer to English than Dutch is; the province also lends its name to the black-and-white Friesian cow.

In 1975, Rembrandt's 'The Night Watch' was slashed in the Rijksmuseum with what?

The 1642 group portrait had already suffered once: in 1715 it was trimmed on all four sides to fit a wall in the Amsterdam Town Hall.

Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' has hung since 1902 in which museum?

It is technically a 'tronie', a study of a head and expression, rather than a portrait of a real sitter.

Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 in the village of Zundert, in which province?

He painted 'The Potato Eaters' in nearby Nuenen in 1885 before leaving for Paris and the south of France, where he cut off part of his own ear.

Piet Mondrian co-founded which movement and journal with Theo van Doesburg in 1917?

He eventually restricted himself to red, blue and yellow, black, white and grey, and only horizontal and vertical lines; 'Broadway Boogie Woogie' broke that rule in New York.

The 'Cruyff turn' is named for a feint Johan Cruyff pulled at the 1974 World Cup against which team?

Wearing his trademark number 14, Cruyff dragged the ball behind his standing leg past Jan Olsson; the Dutch reached the final but lost to the hosts.

Which team did the Netherlands beat in the final to win Euro 1988, its first major title?

Ruud Gullit headed the first and Marco van Basten volleyed the second; the men's team lost the World Cup finals of 1974, 1978 and 2010.

Which sport has produced roughly nine in ten of the Netherlands' Winter Olympic medals?

The obsession runs deep: the Elfstedentocht, a nearly 200 km tour on natural ice past eleven Frisian cities, was last held in 1997.

Fanny Blankers-Koen, the first woman to win four Olympic golds, all at London 1948, was known by what nickname?

She competed as a 30-year-old mother of two and was the most successful athlete of the Games; a huge crowd met her on her return to Amsterdam.

Max Verstappen became Formula One's youngest-ever race winner at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix at what age?

It was his debut for Red Bull; he had already become the youngest driver in F1 history when he started for Toro Rosso at 17.

When Willem-Alexander took the throne in 2013, he became the first male Dutch monarch since which year?

His great-great-grandfather William III died that year, after which Wilhelmina, Juliana and Beatrix reigned in turn for 123 years.

In 2017 King Willem-Alexander revealed he had quietly worked twice a month for years as what?

He flew Fokker 70s on Cityhopper routes even after becoming king; KLM, founded in 1919, is the world's oldest airline still operating under its original name.

On Prinsjesdag the monarch reads the speech from the throne to open the parliamentary year. When is it held?

The King rides to the Binnenhof in the Golden Coach, and since 1947 the budget has arrived in a special briefcase copied from the British tradition.

The Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage in which year?

On the first day, 1 April, the mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, personally married four couples.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a draper who ground his own lenses, is remembered as the father of which science?

He called the creatures he saw in pond water 'diertjes' (little animals), later translated as 'animalcules'; only nine of his microscopes survive.

Which moon of Saturn did Christiaan Huygens discover in 1655, two years before his pendulum clock?

He also worked out that Saturn's odd shape was a thin flat ring; the ESA probe that landed on the moon in 2005 was named after him.

Dutch engineer Vic Hayes, who chaired the IEEE 802.11 working group, is the 'father' of which technology?

He led the standards group for a decade from 1990; Bluetooth, often wrongly credited to the Dutch, was developed at Sweden's Ericsson.