The Netherlands consist of twelve provinces, from North to South that are
Friesland, Groningen, Drenthe, Overijssel, Gelderland, Flevoland,
Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland, Utrecht, Noord-Brabant, Zeeland and
Zuid-Limburg.
The two most important ones were Noord(North)- and Zuid(South)-Holland in
the middle-ages, and they still are, with the harbors, much industry, the
big cities, the airports, and so on. In earlier days, Holland was the
gateway to The Netherlands (and the rest of Europe), and the rest of The
Netherlands wasn't important, and I think that is the reason why people
always speak of Holland when they mean The Netherlands.
I'm not really sure where 'Dutch' comes from. We Dutch call the Germans
'Duits', and Germany is 'Duitsland' (Deutschland in German). So I think it's
got someting to do with the German race where Dutch people also belong to,
and Dutch is still a German language. Aaaaaaaaaah I've lost it. Sorry for
that ;)
I'm not a history-expert, I'm just Dutch and remembering the lessons I've
learned in school years and years ago. ;)
Bart
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Lau" <dlau@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 6:11 PM
Subject: RE: [OM] Re: [OT] Dutch/Danish (was "Solvang")
> On Wed, 1 May 2002 10:04, "Olaf Greve" <o.greve@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> >Many excellent elaborations have already been given...
> >-Regarding the usage of the words "Holland" vs. "The Netherlands":
> > Often it is much easier when abroad to
> >simply use the word Holland as more people tend to recognise that. I
found
> >that especially in Hispanic countries the word "Holanda" is used a lot,
>
> Let me also thank all the people who posted answers to my
> original question. This is indeed an excellent global
> community with a vast collection of knowledge.
>
> The name "Holland" is also used in Asia as the name of the
> country now known as "The Netherlands". So I was wondering,
> was Holland a separate country originally and is now
> "absorbed" into The Netherlands? If so, when did this
> happen? It probably happened after the 1600's because all
> the exploration of the Far East were done by the "Dutch"
> from Holland with their world reknown pilots. [By the way,
> to go further off track, why are the people from Holland not
> called Hollanders or Hollandians but "Dutch"?]
>
> By the way, the Chinese sweet pea pod is called "Holland pea"
> in Chinese, so it must have been introduced into China by
> the Hollandians. So do they eat similar pea pods in Holland?
>
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