Talk:Netherlands/Archive1

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"The Dutch are known as a tolerant people."

I know that "the Dutch like to see themselves as a tolerant people", but does the rest of the world really know the Dutch to be tolerant? I am not even sure that a native speaker of English would have even thought of the term 'tolerant'. Instead, they would probably be wondering 'tolerant to what?'.--branko

I find them tolerant except for my opinions and my housekeeping. They are polite about my housekeeping. :^)
"the Dutch like to see themselves as a tolerant people" ... We do??? new to me ;) Maybe it's the Hollanders that think that way... lol -Kraftwerk-
It is a fact that The Netherlands is a progressive state:

The Netherlands is one of the fist, if not the first country that regulates by law gay marriage, abortion, and euthanasia. The Netherlands is also famous for there tolerance to the use of soft drugs.

>The Dutch are not really tolerant in general, at least not more tolerant than the other countries around. However, this only accounts for "cases" where someone's actions may involve other people, like wearing a burqa or making noise at night. If someone commits a so called "victimless crime", such as using soft drugs, committing euthanasia, voluntary prostitution, etc.., Dutch people simply won't care. (and in most cases: cannot understand why people in other countries do).

I am dutch and I must say we used to be a more tolerant people many years ago. But in the last 10 years a lot has changed. More and more people get fed up with illegal aliens, terrorism and criminality. This happens probably in every country, but it is finaly effecting us also. -eurocanna-

I would second that. Compared to the county I used to live in, I would not classify the Dutch as especially tolerant. The laws are pretty tolerant, the people less so. CjDMaX 00:40, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Capital City

This is the definition of capital from webster's dictionary: a city serving as a seat of government Amsterdam does not meet that definiton. All of the following things are true: -When asked, in English, what the capital of the Netherlands is, Dutch people respond that it is Amsterdam. -The constitution states that Amsterdam is the hoofdstad, litteraly, head city. -The Hague is the city serving as the seat of government.

If some one is asking themselves, and then the internet what the capital of the Netherlands is, they are probably asking for a reason. So we might as well give them the whole truth, and let them draw the conclusions based on the purpose of the question. It seems to me that the word capital exists so that people can quickly ask where the legislature, and head-of-state are based in any state. If the answer is more complicated for Holland, then we should give them the full story.

I think what is going on here is that a lot of people think that the dutch have the right to tell people what their capital is whether that meets the definition of the word or not.

I think that people looking up the capital in an encyclopedia have the right to be told first hand which city meets the definition of the word capital in websters dictionary. If I told you that my fingers were toes, you would not take my word for it that I was a peculiar person who had toes on his hands. You would say that I was a strange person who thought that his fingers were toes. You would look up what toes are in the dictionary, and find out that my toes were not on my hands. And when writing an enclopedia article on me, you would at most put that I was a person who liked to refer to my fingers as toes.

I think that we are coming up with a paragraph here that will concisely tell the whole truth to people who want to know the capital of Holland for any of the many reasons that they might want to do so. The only part that I object to now is that it is stated that hoofdstad litterally means capital. It litterally means head city. At most it should be stated that Dutch people invariably insist that hoofdstad means capital, even though the two words' dictionary definitions do not match. That is a fact, which is all we should be including in this article.

Please check out section 5 of this article where I (and others) have already discussed the matter. The linguistic argument of 'hoofdstad' meaning: 'head city' is cirrect but serves neither side of the argument since the english word for capital also literally means ' head city' from the Latin word for head. The German word for capital is 'Hauptstadt' which also means 'head city'. This argument therefore clearly serves no purpose in asserting that hoofdstad = capital = mistranslation. I have also demonstrated that the Dutch do not simply call the main city a capital. Chelman 17:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

OK. But I have demonstrated that Amsterdam does not meet the dictionary definition of Capital. Why are you opposed to telling the reader the whole truth, and letting them decide what information they were looking for?

Adding the info about the disjoint capital and government location is perfectly correct. Your edit, however stated: '(literally "head city", and invariably translated as "capital")', this implies that the Dutch somehow call Amsterdam their capital because of a mistranslation of the word. That is most definately not correct. In any case I feel that regardless of the linguistic arguments the only viable criterium for a capital is that what the inhabitants of a given country feel and call their capital. If the Polish decide that their capital as of tomorrow will be Gniezno or Cracow ....well then so be it. It's their capital. Chelman 20:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Exactly. And if you look up the translation of hoofdstad in a Dutch-English dictionary, you'll find it's capital (city), which is etymologically the same word. And The Hague is the seat of government, which is the translation of regeringszetel. So, even if you insist on using dictionaries to settle this subject, here's wat you should say. Sixtus 21:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
ok then. What if the people of California decided that California's highest point where Hollywood Boulevard? well then so be it? Hollywood Boulevard is their highest point? no, because no matter what the people of California say, that is not what highest point means. And someone looking up the highest point wants to know the highest point, not the city that californians consider their highest point. What if the Polish decide that Poland is an island nation? well then so be it? List Poland in the list of the world's biggest islands?Webster's dictionary says what capital means in English. Etymology is not relevant. It is an aside that the word that the dutch use to describe amsterdam has the same etymology as capital. It is an aside that the dutch think that Amsterdam is the capital. All that is important to mention. But there is no basis for saying in anything resembling absolute terms that Amsterdam is the capital of Holland, when it doesn't fit the dictionary definition of capital.
The examples of heights etc. that you have given bear no relevance to this discussion. Heights, sizes, waterborders are not only matters of definition, they are primarily objectively verifiable and empirically measurable. A word such as capital does not fall in that category. Whilst I agree with you that in the majority of cases the seat of government is the capital, I disagree with the absolutism of that statement. Netherlands is not the only example of this (Bolivia, Ivory Coast). What to think of nations that moved their capital in relatively recent years such as Nigeria or Brazil? They moved their capitals to Abuja and Brasilia respectively but it took a fair amount of time before the transition of government offices was concluded. What was their capital during the transition? And how about the capital of Europe (a rather more fluid concept but valid nonetheless). Most would agree that it's Brussels. Yet Strasbourg, Luxembourg, Te Hague also house a siginificant proportion of government institutions. Chelman 12:40, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
As far as I know, in most of those cases, just as in Germany, and Belize, the meeting place of the legislature was moved as soon as possible. But that it is not all that necessary to go into that. We are already in agreement that the seat of the dutch government is the Hague. And the dictionary says that capital means seat of government. And anyway, if this is not "absolute", then we cannot put any answer here. All we can comment on are the absolute things, and report the non-absolute opinions of others.
But we are agreed on the form of the form of the paragraph as far as I can tell. I am just not in agreement with the use of the word litterally. This word is usually translate a group of words. What you mean to say here is that capital and hoofdstad share a parallel etymological route.
"Seat of government" says what it means. "Capital" does not, so the meaning of the word, which is not defined anywhere officially, has to be described. The dictionary does that. But a dictionary does not define. It describes. And sometimes, you'll come across exceptions that do not match the description in the dictionary, because for some strange (historical?) reason, some countries, like mine, like to define their capital to be some city other the city where the government is based. So in general, the seat of government is in the capital, but in some cases, it is not. Read capital and seat of government - those articles are consistent with my point of view here. And they're encyclopedic articles, not dictionary entries which have to be extremely short. By the way, if you look up capital in any English-Dutch dictionary, it'll say hoofdstad, not regeringszetel. So why use the Webster's as the definitive source? Sixtus 20:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

This discussion is treated in Capital of the Netherlands. Piet 09:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Older comments

(New comment moved to the bottom of the page...)

--- "The Dutch monarch has no real political power, but serves as a ceremonial figurehead to represent the nation."

I don't think this is true. The Dutch monarch has an important part in the process of forming a coalition of parties after ver general election. The current Queen has a government of her own, has "Commissarissen van de Koningin" (Representatives of the Queen) in every province. She is well connected, demand respect from a lot of people and is well versed in the policy- and decision making process in the Netherlands. I think it should say:

"The Dutch monarch serves mainly as a ceremonial figurehead to represent the nation but does have some minor influence in Dutch politics."


Should this not perhaps be on The Netherlands?

Probably.


Yes I think so. The term The Netherlands describes the historically grown unity of the Low Lands Holland, Zeeland, Friesland, Utrecht and other provinces. In Dutch the name has a singular form "Nederland', but in Englisch and French (Les Pays- Bas) the plural form. I suppose this stems from the the term "The Republic of the United Netherlands; in the 17th and 18th century the country was officially called that way.

Is 'democratic monarchy' the usual term? I'm more familiar with 'constitutional monarchy' to imply an elected government under a monarch. --MichaelTinkler

'Constitutional monarchy' is also the common term in The Netherlands. I've changed it in the text. -- Tsja

What about the artists and football?

"The Dutch are known as a tolerant people."

I know that "the Dutch like to see themselves as a tolerant people", but does the rest of the world really know the Dutch to be tolerant? I am not even sure that a native speaker of English would have even thought of the term 'tolerant'. Instead, they would probably be wondering 'tolerant to what?'.--branko

I find them tolerant except for my opinions and my housekeeping. They are polite about my housekeeping. :^)
"the Dutch like to see themselves as a tolerant people" ... We do??? new to me ;) Maybe it's the Hollanders that think that way... lol -Kraftwerk-

I've tried to bring more structure in this article, making the loose prhases a little more coherent, adding a short facts table, and referring to the respective subpages. Mabye we could do this for the other pages for countries as well, so feel free to comment. jheijmans

I like the idea of the table with basic information and have tried to do something similar with a few of the articles on the United States. My vote is definitely to do that for the other countries as well. On the other hand, the inclusion of People and Geography on the main page, when there already are separate articles for them, can be confusing. I think it can be solved though, because the individual pages taken from the CIA Fact Book contain basic statistical information, which could also be incorporated into a chart, leavieng the rest of the articles to discuss the issue further in depth. Danny
Major improvement! I especially like the table of data. This is similar to what I have done for the Beryllium article and plan on doing for all the elements (as soon as I am satisfied with the organization of the table). Both reorganizations need a lot of thought due to the fact that so many articles will be changed over (more so for the countries than the elements). Perhaps Netherlands can be a prototype that we can work on? I will look this over later and give some more specific feedback. --maveric149
I think it's great, but one thing we should consider is possibly putting sq. miles alongside kilometers. Danny
Since table width for those rows are not an issue I definitely agree. We should use some type of convention on what units are used first and second. In this and in most cases we should list kilometers first and have miles in parenthesis right after. For the States it should be the opposite though. Are there any countries other than the US that don?t use some version of the metric system officially? --maveric149

My attempt was indeed also inspired by the work on the Beryllium article, but also by the fact that most country articles are still mostly based around the World Factbook and a collection of short phrases about the country. The subpages-idea can work pretty well, although some page are less likely to be worked on (military, transnational issues) for most countries.

I would really appreciate commentary on the plans, which I'll outline below (so you have more than just the article):

  • Introduction - name of the country (also local name), location in the world, bordering countries, seas, etc.
  • Flag - national flag (maybe there should be some standard here for the size and source of the flag? Mabye [Flags of the World]?
May I suggest that flags will always have a single pixel wide border, of a shade about 50% darker than the original pixel? This will help to distinguish especially flags with a white border from the page's background colour. The border would be laid over the original flag, rather than being drawn around it. See Aruba or Quebec for an example.
Also, the size need not be very large, as people can always go to FOTW.--branko
  • Facts - table with some basic facts, to avoid short sentences with this information. Right now, I have
    • Official name - in English, also in local language(s) if different
    • Capital city - the capital city or cities (explain differences)
    • Land area - area of the country in sq km and sq miles
    • Inhabitants - number of inhabitants (this should also include the date of this estimation, if any)
    • Population density - the number of inhabitants per sq km/sq mile
    • Currency - local currency (no exchange rates), maybe subdivisions should be mentioned too (like dollar (=100 cents)
    • Time zone - don't know the standard here, I've used GMT, but I think there's another one around as well - maybe daylight saving time should also be mentiond
    • National anthem - link to article about it
    • Maybe we can get some more data from the World Factbook entries
  • History - brief outline of the major events in the country's history, a paragraphy on the current events going on there, a link to the article with the detailed story
  • Politics - short overview, including current governmental system, possibly previous forms, some short notes on the parliament. Link to article.
  • Geography - quick description of the countries main features, climate, administrative divisions. Maybe there should be a separate page with a list of these divisions, like Provinces of the Netherlands, or States of the United States of America. Link to article.
  • People - Languages spoken, major religions, some well known properties of them. Link to article.
  • Culture - Not sure about this, this is right only a list of names, and therefore not really useful yet. Should be more storylike.
  • Other topics - a list of other related articles

Wow! Sounds like you already have things well thought-out -- Believe it or not but I can't think of anything major to add at the moment. For the people section, though, I did happen upon some additional 2000 demographic data from the US Census you might want to take a look at. Here is the link: http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbsum.html and here is an example of what information is presented: http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbsum?cty=NL We could either simply link to these census data from the "People of" sub-articles, update the CIA data, and/or add the population pyramids to the sub-articles (which I think are a great way to graphically show the age distribution of a country). I should probably get to bed before the sun rises, so I've got to go now. --maveric149

Great work so far, it would indeed be a good idea to move away from the CIA factbook format and create something particular to Wikipedia. For the remaining CIA factbook sections, perhaps there could be another major section beside those you listed, namely one offering a brief description of the Economy and a link to a greater overview (maybe Communications and Transportation could be lumped in here as well). Military might be filed under the overview for Politics and Transnational Issues most often contains only uninteresting drug-related info, which might also go under Politics if necessary. As far as the table goes, maybe adding the two and three letter country codes would be a suggestion? I'm more than willing to aid in contributing to the geography and history sections, but I'm still new, so I'm not sure what to do when two people are simultaneously intending to edit articles. Should I perhaps let jheijmans finish his work first? -Scipius

Scipius, if you think you can contribute and you want to do it - don't hesitate! If two people are editing simultaneously, you'll see an edit conflict, and you can then act accordingly to accomodate all changes. If you have any additions to history/geography besides the basic information (I think the current text about says all, but that's my opinion), look at the respective articles. History of the Netherlands is already quite good, but also lacks a little structure, and many part are missing. Geography of the Netherlands isn't even a real article, so you can just play around there.
As for the abbreviations, that might be useful, though there are a lot of abbreviations you may want to mention (see http://home.t-online.de/home/flaggenarchiv/countr~1.htm).
The World Factbook data should be not be removed, but be presented in useful tables or text, I think jheijmans
I certainly agree that the Factbook info should not be removed when the choice is between it and nothing ;) It's just a bit of a shame that Wikipedia often has to depend on this outside source completely, however good it is. -Scipius

I like the idea of having the flag in the table, however this does create a lot of white space. Perhaps we can also have the national seal and/or a world or regional locator map? The locator maps should be easy enough to make. --maveric149

Opps! Looks like align right was killed with the addition of the coat of arms. Please bring it back. --maveric149
I didn't remove it - ap changed it like this; don't like it either. jheijmans
I've edited the table a bit to separate the images, it's not very elegant with all the &nbsp, but it works. Also added a dark line. Feel free to change it if it's not to anyone's liking, I wasn't too sure myself ;). This also goes for the new suggested title. I've added just the TLD country code as a new entry, I would think this is a bit of information one could generally associate with a country or might be wondering about, or is it not really that relevant? -Scipius

How about using "Historical Overview" instead of "History" as a heading since there is a separete "History of" article? --maveric149

Sounds OK, though the other subheadings should also be updated (there's a page on politics, and the other pages should become something too - eventually). jheijmans
Looks like we will have to put some more thought into this. I will contemplate this myself ("Political Overview" doesn't work for me and neither does the somewhat forced "Geographical Overiew"). --maveric149

The table looks great at XGA+ but is way too wide for low res screens now. How about having a separate row for the official native language title and reduce the amount of text and the text size of the image info rows so that they are no longer than any other row. --maveric149

I've narrowed it a bit (with even more &nbsp padding) and gave some of the data its own cell. I'm not sure if we should make this as table as small as possible, we will likely have to account for some room as other countries could need even more space. -Scipius

Hi, like what you've done to the place! Table looks much better in this way. Only thing I'm not sure about is the Internet TLD entry; should it really be in there? And I think you can remove the (s) in the local name(s) and language(s), and make city cities.

Oh yeah, and Frisian is an official language as well, I'll add it to the table. jheijmans

I've updated the population count to those mentioned at http://www.cbs.nl/en/figures/popclock/popclocknl.asp (the counter has probably already increased...) jheijmans

I kinda like the TLD entry - its not particuraly useful but is an interesting fact for an online encyclopedia to note. Less useful perhaps, is mentioning the particular coinage, which is already a link or two away through the Euro article and is another thing making the table too wide (better than it was though). I will go ahead and take a stab at decreasing the width of the table (mostly by placing the "seat of government" note is a notes row). Change anything you don't like. --maveric149
The link to the Dutch coinage article isn't easy to find from Euro so I just moved the note about the former currency to a notes row. The font size of the text descriptions for the images could also be reduced to -1 size. In addition to further reducing the width of the table I think this would look better. I will do this too if nobody objects. --maveric149
I've tried your suggestion, and I think this is probably as small as the table can be or perhaps should be. I've also implemented a better way to separate the images, a table in a table instead of all those &nbsp, which also means things look better in Cologne Blue, my theme, though it's still not perfect. -Scipius
I just switched from no theme to Cologne Blue (which is a very nice theme), but the page looks uglier. The font is bigger in the tables, and the text around the tables is not separated by any white space whatsoever. All in this in Netscape 6, btw. jheijmans
I know, I use CB / Mozilla1.0 myself, but the way CB treats tables is the one major disadvantage of that theme. It still looks better than it did with all the &nbsp though and since the majority of Wikipedians still use the normal theme and its "table-side manner" ;) (the "Print article" function itself does so to, even in CB), I thought it best to keep it optimised for them. Is there any way to alter this behaviour in CB? Is there a discussion on it somewhere? -Scipius

OK, this looks more like a bug/mis-feature with the Cologne Blue theme than with this table. I just switched to this theme and checked some other tables ? they all had huge fonts in comparison to regular text. If anything, I would like to have it the other way around: smaller fonts in tables. I don?t know why this theme automatically forces such a font size scheme down browser throats ? the humans working on article should decide what is best for the article ? not some computer code. --maveric149

Is the translation of the motto "Je maintiendrai" as "I will maintain" correct? "Maintain" in English is transitive, so it feels rather incomplete, like someone left a word out. For that matter, French "maintenir" is transitive as well... Trawling google results, some pages I find suggest translations along the lines of "I will persist", "I will last", "I will persevere" (which would fit well with "je me maintiendrai"), or nebulous "I will maintain", "I will uphold" sort of stuff. Is there an implied subject, like "I will maintain order" or "I will uphold the law" or something? --Brion VIBBER

The Dutch translation of "Je maintiendrai" is "Ik zal handhaven". If I'm correct, it is from a French verse in which William the Silent says he'll maintain virtue, his name, his belief, that kind of things. So yes, there is an implied subject here, but it is not "me". jheijmans
A little more; per http://dutchrevolt.leidenuniv.nl/Nederlands/spreuken/je%20maintiendrai.htm (in Dutch), the explanation is a follows. William the Silent (actually William of Orange-Nassau) got the right to the lands of this cousin René of Chalons, whose device was "Je maintiendrai Chalons", which William changed to "Je maintiendrai Nassau". He also used in once in a letter (as I mention above), in combination with other subjects. The "Nassau" later disappeared; since 1813 it is the official motto of the Netherlands. Another page mentions it was also used by William III of England (originally Dutch), "I will maintain England and the Protestant religion". jheijmans
Ahh, I see, thanks! Perhaps an explanatory note to this effect should appear in the text. --Brion VIBBER

I have edited the article to show some suggestions for the respective sections. The basic idea is to have six main topics, with the primary country page containing a short summary and vital statistics of those six and a prominent link to each main topic article, where the subject will be dealt with in depth. A further suggestion would be that those topic articles can be quite extensive, though still general in scope, with links to a third layer of articles dealing with the more important issues/events/aspects relating to that topic. I'd like to hear what others think about it at this stage. I have also slightly changed two topic titles, but I haven't moved the articles in question pending some feedback. -Scipius

I like the recent changes to the headings ? the previous ones where too large and the addition of simply saying ?Main article: X of the Netherlands? right below the heading makes it very clear that the text below is a summary without having to change the text of the heading. Very organic. --maveric149

Headings look fine, though they're no longer real Wiki-headings now. Some points though:

  • why two links under politics?
  • I think the English name should come first in the table (that seems to be the case with most local names in Wikipedia)
  • Current head of state is here a little vague (I'd at least mention the prime-minister here) and it's already in the text, too.
  • Frisian is really an official language, even though it is only spoken in Friesland
  • I don't think removing the current political situation from history is a good idea; history now ends in 1948, so that should be more up to date, though it is true that that paragraph was mostly political.
  • I like people of X better than Demography (not everybody knows what that is)

jheijmans

Good points, I'll explain my motivations:
  • The intention is to have just Politics of the Netherlands, for consistency with the other main "X of the Netherlands" articles, plus that the article on Dutch politics will likely include its international position. I left the old article for the time being to allow some debate about it; it can be moved, but I wasn't sure if a simple renaming wouldn't be simpler, if that's possible?
  • I'm a little undecided about this one as well (funnily enough, it was your placing of the names in the Liechtenstein article that prompted me to make this change ;)). An English name is already used at the top and in the title, so that name would already be clear when entering this page. I thought that the proper local name could thus be given prominence in the context of the Facts table.
  • Take it more as a suggestion. I added it because the head of state would seem to me to be one of those principal facts, even if their function is often mostly ceremonial, they're still the primary human representative of a country. The head of government and the difference between the two would be best left in the main article on Politics to keep the table smaller. I consider the table to present just the most significant data of the various topics (with head of state representing Politics), I don't think it's bad that there's some overlapping, but I could be wrong.
  • I added the reference to Friesland to avoid the assumption that Frisian was an official language in all the Netherlands, which it isn't. AFAIK, the status of Frisian is territorial, i.e. confined to Friesland.
  • Politics and history are closely related as it is, and some history will inevitable creep in most articles, but info on the current administration really is best dealt with under Politics IMHO. Note also that the main article on History does not mention the current government. History should provide mostly background; it doesn't have to end in 1948 (it won't once I'm through with it ;)), but I think that the most recent political developments were best resectioned to Politics.
  • That's why I haven't copied it, see point 1. Demography does seem to me the better, more general term, since the topic will include more than just info on the population itself. Linguistics and religion and such topics, though ultimately about people, are a bit more general in nature. Some people may not immediately know what it means, but I think it would be clear from the summary following it. -Scipius

Just a couple minor comments: The English name really should come before the local one -- the table is not just another part of the article, it is also a thing onto itself and will be copied by many people who will not also copy the text. I also don't think listing the head of state will be particularly useful -- this term means different things in different countries and some countries don't use this terminology. In the United States, for example, the president is both head of state and head of government. And the term "head of state" means the person with executive powers needed to run and lead the country by forming policy and "head of government" means the person at the top of the bureaucracy. Before the current US Constitution was enacted, the president was the person who presided (hence president) over Congress and who was the head of the government (in charge of the day to day operations of government bureaucracy). But he couldn't make any policy decisions on his own, had to rely on Congress to make these decisions (Congress was the head of state) and then had to do the bidding of Congress through his role as head of government. Other countries view the reigning monarch as "head of state" -- but this is just an honorary title and the monarch only has power of influence (if that) and not any power to form policy. So these two terms really aren't meaningful in the larger context of things. Oh and I like the word "demography" much better than simply "people" -- it is more inclusive, follows the pattern set by the other sub-articles and shouldn't be a recognition problem for anybody familiar with the word demographics. But then "people of.. " isn't terrible either. --maveric149

OK, let's see:

  • "of the" - you're right, "in the" suggests it'll be only internal
  • I'm with maveric on the order of the names in the table
  • As maveric points out, head of state is at least a vague heading - maybe the entire concept is. This needs more explanation and is therefore more in place at the politics section
  • OK, you're right about Frisian, it isn't an official language in the entire country.
  • If you can write some lines on Post-WWII for the summary section on history, that'd be great.
  • Demography does sound more 'encyclopedic', so let's take it :-)

Some more: I think we can integrate all the miscelleanous topics with existing sections: Dutch football teams should be linked somewhere from sport, not from the main article (it's not that important), transnational issues belong either with history or politics. Military looks like a typical CIA entry. There could be an article Military of the Netherlands, linked from politics(?) jheijmans, Wednesday, June 26, 2002

I was aware of the distinction between the head of state and government, my primary motivation in suggesting it lay in mentioning the top of the political hierarchy of the land. As I said, it was just a thought, I have removed it in the table.
I still disagree on the issue of which name should come first though. I do see the table as just a part of the article it's included in and in this context there's no chance of confusion. Rather, I would think that its prominent display can serve to familiarise readers a little bit with the language and culture of the country they have come to find out about.
About other topics, yes jheijmans, that's what I had in mind as well (see above), but we'll see what topics can be treated sufficiently in the main article and which need their own "third layer" article. Military should indeed go under Politics in my view as well.
I have further added a population pyramid in the form of a table. Based on the US Census data presented above and more or less an experiment in table-building ;), I'd like to hear what others think of it (is it perhaps too big?). It's not quite finished yet (e.g. there's this extraneous > that keeps popping up). -Scipius
Cool HTML pyramid! Did that take long to make? If it did, we still might consider using US Census images for this for countries - at least until someone gets around coding a table for each of the 140 or so countries in the world. I changed the first text line of the article to give the officially recognized English title. With that information there, I don't think it is that necessary to list the English title first in the table and may in fact be visually redundent for the article taken as a whole. --maveric149
The hardest part was figuring it out, but I estimate that future pyramids can use it as a template without too much trouble. After calculating the percentages, you can easily adjust the colspan="x" variables in each row. Western countries will look similar, third-world ones will need a broader base. You can do this by adding cells in the main block (at present 47 columns to a row) and adding their number to the colspan variables. Each cell represents 0.2% in this table, but others could use a different amount. I've looked for a copyright notice at the IDB for the images and came up empty, so I'm not sure if they could be copied. Even if they could, they are rather ugly IMHO ;). I also think percentages present a more manageable unit.
HTML elements should not be used as graphical elements in this way. HTML is a semantic markup language, not a drawing tool. This is hackish and extremely bad for keeping websites accessible. Is there a better alternative within Wikipedia? Automatically generated images perhaps? -- JeroenHoek 17:22, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I'm also not sure about the new intro. Isn't this whole article just a summary for the main topic articles (or will be)? I agree with jheijmans that the first few lines should be short, and maybe simply serve to broadly position the country in a geograhical context. -Scipius

Like the pyramid (some work that'll have been?)! Don't really like the new introduction though. The information on independence is already too lengthy; I think the first sentence should be brief but informative. Also, the fact above how much of the country lies below sea-level is certainly not a well-established fact. One source says 1/4, another 1/2. This may also have to do with the fact that the area can be including water and excluding water. As about 1/5 of the total area of the country is water, this may give some differences in the numbers.

Maybe it would be a good idea to move year (or date) of independence to the table? Most countries will have a fixed date (all the former colonies/protectorates/etc.) for it, though we will have to differ between declared and recognised (not for all countries, but also for the USA, f.e.). It's information you may want to have quickly ("how long does this country exist?"), so the table is a good place IMO.

Maybe we can also add two entries to the table for: head of state and head of government (or one if there's only one). In this case that would be the queen and the prime minister (until the new pm comes, of course).

Any thoughts? jheijmans, Thursday, June 27, 2002

I think the table should have separate head of state and head of government entries -- they are different for a large percentage of countries (certaintly the majority of Western countries, all though the world's tinpot presidental dictatorship probably tip the overall balance in favour of the presidental system.) And independence date information is useful for the majority of the world's countries as well. The distinction between the head of state and head of government can be made clearly in most cases if it exists. If the information isn't relevant for a particularly country, just add "N/A" or don't include that field in the table for that particular country... -- SJK

I'd go for not including the entry. jheijmans, Thursday, June 27, 2002

I was the one who added the extra info to the definition paragraph due to the fact that introduction paragraphs should always give a good definition of what an article is about before going into the article. Oftentimes this information is a bit redundant, but is designed to give a reader a good general idea of what the topic is before going into it (similar to the definition paragraph in United States of America). I try to incorporate into these paragraphs what I feel is the most essential facts a person should get out of the entire article (a short executive summary if you will). As a matter of fact, I lifted much of the text from an old dictionary. Just keep this in mind when you edit the definition paragraph -- this is not something I am going to revert you on.

I think it would be nice to have dates of independence in the table -- but in many cases it will also be necessary to have this information in definition paragraphs (it really isn't needed in this case though -- too much to explain). If we do wish to list the leader(s) of nations in the table we should either use wording that has stable meanings across nations (such as the generic "[[Lists of incumbents|Leader]]") or use the titles that are recognized by that nation (such as "[[List of Dutch Heads of State|Head of State]]"). Notice the link to the lists. In some cases actual articles are written about a nation's leaders. In these cases I would suggest this format: [[President of the United States|President]]. I would prefer we used option 2 and keep these links local to the nation at hand and systematically add links to Lists of incumbents to each of the nation-specific leader lists/articles. --maveric149

I disagree. The terms "heads of state" and "head of government" can be applied to almost every nation on Earth, with a very few exceptions. For example:

  • the head of government of the US is the President, and the head of state of the US is also the President
  • the head of government of Germany is the Chancellor, and the head of state is the President
  • the head of government of France is the Prime Minister, and the head of state is the President

Each of these three countries represents the three main systems of government on earth -- the presidental, the parliamentary, and the semi-presidental. Just about every country on earth (as I said, Switzerland, San Marino and Andorra are exceptional) can be described using these two terms. Of course, I'd include the country specific term as well. But what if the reader doesn't know the meaning of the country specific terms, i.e. which one is the head of state and which one is the head of government? e.g.

The Republic of BlahBlah
Bablabo: John Blahnich
Blabliba: Sally Blahson

Faced with that hypothetical country, how is the reader supposed to know what a Bablabo and Blabliba are? But if we use "head of state" and "head of government":

The Republic of BlahBlah
Head of State: Bablabo John Blahnich
Head of Government: Babliba Sally Blahson

Now the reader knows what we are talking about... so I say lets include "head of state" and "head of government" in the table. If they are the same, we can just put "same as head of state" under "Head of Government" -- SJK

Before seeing SJK's remarks, I already acted on maveric's proposal. Added entries Queen and Prime Minister, which are well-accepted English terms. And even if they weren't (can only think of a few people might not know, such as sultan, emir, and even those are quite commonly known), there's always teh link to tell more.

I linked Queen to the article on Dutch Monarchy (which needs work as well, btw), there isn't a list of PMs yet (can be arranged).

Independence entries still need a day and month, didn't have them at hand (wait, the 1579 date should be in the Union of Utrecht article).

I also removed the colons in the table, which were quite superfluous, and the note about half the country being under sea level (see earlier remark). Comments/changes are welcome, of course. jheijmans, Thursday, June 27, 2002

On the definition paragraph: A person shouldn’t have to read the entire article to get at least a vague idea of what the subject of the article is (like my work on Barium and the other elements articles). That is why wikipedia articles are supposed to begin with a good definition. Not everyone has time or is willing to read an entire article just to get the bare basics. Oftentimes, people just read the first couple of sentences of an article to see if the article is something they want to read in whole. So, we should take this opportunity to grab a person’s attention up-front with something a little more than geographical orientation. See the definition paragraph at United States of America for an idea of what I am talking about. We should strive to approximate the essence (however inadequate) of the country in as few words as possible (and do it in an interesting to read manor). Like I said, the independence info is a bit much for this particular country due to the fact that it takes too much explaining (I had to add the parenthetical comment after I noticed the apparent contradiction and it was that addition that ruined the effect I was looking for). However, this should be replaced with some important fact (which I just did a stab at). --maveric149

I just changed the external link under the population pyramid to point directly to US Census population pyramids for the Netherlands for the years 2000, 2020 and 2050. When a country article template is made having a link to http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbpyrs.pl?cty=__ will expedite data recovery (using the "Extract data" tab after replacing the "__" with the two letter country code -- like so: http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbpyrs.pl?cty=NL. This is the same thing I've done with the template at Periodic table/Temp, and has helped me a lot in data acquisition. --maveric149

The new introduction is much, much, better in this way, good work! I'm not really sure about the EU links at the bottom. The European Union itself is already linked, so the other EU countries are just a click away; why not list all countries of Europe there, or all countries of the World? It looks a bit random to me. However, having some general links at the bottom is not a bad idea, I'd propose things like:
  • list of countries (or countries of the world, whatever it is called)
  • Europe (the continent we're in)
  • the most important international unions the country is involved in (EU, UN, NATO, Benelux, more?)
  • maybe links to the dependent areas (Aruba, Antilles here)

This will give the reader a much better overview of where he'd like to go to than just a "random" number of countries, I think. jheijmans, Thursday, June 27, 2002

Thanks. I din't put them there, but I kinda like the EU links at the bottom -- they integrate the article really nicely into the context of it being a member state of a very important larger entity. If this is done for all EU state's, then navigating them would be a cinch. Continent and list of contries would also be good but I don't know about listing international unions at the bottom of the main article. It would make more sense to me if these were listed in Politics of the Netherlands -- and probably not at the bottom there either. Same for dependent areas. --maveric149
I agree that is will be easier to navigate through the EU countries. But my point is - how many users want to navigate through the EU countries? Is that more likely to happen than users that want to navigate through all European countries, all the countries, all countries of NATO, the UN, ....? I haven't got a clue about it. For me, that means that _IF_ there's anything to be listed, it should not be the EU only. jheijmans, Friday, June 28, 2002

I'm the one who added the EU links. I thought it would be appropriate because the EU is of course not just any international organisation for the Netherlands and other members, it is a vital part of the economy, the legislature, politics, etc., and this will likely only increase in the future. I'm still not entirely sure of how the bottom bar should look like though, since at least a link to Countries of the world might be necessary as well.

I have further added a suggested seventh section. The provinces and dependencies are more of a geopolitical nature rather than strictly geographic, so it may be best to put it in between geography and politcs. I'm not sure about the name, possibly for other countires we could have the name of the local subdivison-name (US: States, Germany: Länder, etc). Obviously, only the major subdivisions should be listed, the smaller ones can be added under the respective major ones, i.e. the municipalities will be listed under the province they belong to.

Thirdly, a new map by my own hand to replace the minimalistic CIA Factbook map, showing the provinces and their capitals and the major waterways. There will be a larger one with more info as a supplement, but I haven't got time now ;) BTW, I'm having major problems connecting to the site over the past few days, am I the only one? -Scipius

I like the additons, but they really should probably belong in Geography of the Netherlands. There are two main types of geography, physical and political, and these two really should be in the same sub-article. The map is also nice, but probably too detailed for the main article -- great to have it in the geography sub-article. I like the CIA maps for their simplicity -- only showing the shape of the countries, their neighbors and largest cities. That is all that is needed in the main article. --maveric149, Sunday, June 30, 2002
I disagree. The Factbook map is what I would consider the bare minimum for a map and it's really nothing more than a sketch, with minimal information contained within it, sometimes somewhat irrelevant info too. To take the example of the Dutch map, for some inexplicable reason it included several small harbour towns like IJmuiden, Terneuzen or Delfzijl (but not Flushing, and Europoort is not even a town) and left provincial capitals like Middelburg, Lelystad and Den Bosch off of it, as well as stuff like the Houtribdijk. My intention is to have a different kind of map for the geography section, something displaying the geological morphology or types of landscape, in line with making that section "strictly" about physical geography. -Scipius
Like I said though, the province map has too much information for the main article -- whose focus is on the whole country not just the provinces. It would be great, however, to have your province map along with a morphology map in Geography of the Netherlands -- remembering that geography is two-fold at its largest scale, with physical and sociopolitical branches (if that sub-article gets too long, then the two types of geography can also be broken up). Sure, the CIA map has issues, but it does have the desired simplicity for the main article. It should be a cinch to whip up a map just of the country itself and major cities -- the province info is just too much for the eye to handle when trying to focus on the country in whole. Also remember, that this article is acting as a template for other coutry articles, and many countries have way too many states, provinces, counties to have on a map that would be appropriate for the main article. The whole idea of having a main article is to summarize data on a country and to go into detail in the sub-articles. --maveric149
Sorry, but I'm not convinced ;) You have a point about other countries possibly not being able to include the same amount of detail, but that's a question that needs to be seen on a case-to-case basis I would think. Some could include more than others, but anything's better than the Factbook maps which, to my mind, contain too little information, let alone their possible inaccuracies. You can see the now available larger version to see what I would think a basic map of the Netherlands should include (obviously this wouldn't fit into the small version). It would perhaps be interesting to hear what others think of this issue. -Scipius

Scipius, Maveric (and others): I haven't edited this page for a while, and I think this is pretty much what all the country pages should approximately look like. Of course, the article isn't finished (only to look at the economy section), but I think as a "template", this is a pretty good example. I will update the WikiProject page I made for countries with this information, and move the Liechtenstein/temp page to the real article; maybe even start over another country's page. I think the "template" could still change when editing new countries (there's always new things (and new authors) coming up), but that shouldn't be a problem in Wikipedia. Jheijmans 11:34 Jul 23, 2002 (PDT)

I hope you won't mind me tinkering further with the template, but I've added a new layout idea in the form of horizontal lines to separate the sections. Previously I had used a single space on a line to create more whitespace between them, but I've seen that this wasn't clear in other applications of the template, such as United States and Liechtenstein, where the sections crowd together a little. The horizontal lines IMHO neatly create a clear sectioning of the article and they adapt to various page sizes and tables/maps. The code is: <hr align="center" noshade size="2" width="75%">
I've further copied some of the Factbook info from the Economy article to the main article in order to fill things up a little for the mean time. Also, check out the bottom where more links have been added. Does anyone else like or dislike these ideas? -Scipius

I really do not like the lines -- in my browser they do not line up and are centered between the left edge and the table or between both edges, which in my opion is needlessly distracting. Furthermore the internal text of the article already has huge amount of HTML which only discourages editing by those unfamiliar with HTML. Please just add some added whitespace -- this is one article not a bunch of articles borged together. --mav 13:11 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

I'm with mav; if you want to use horizontal lines, just use normal ones. The wiki syntax is as it always has been, a line with four dashes: ---- Brion VIBBER

I don't like the lines either, they look ugly. Also I'm against excessive use of HTML - I am already not too happy with the fact that our headers are not of the 2 x = format (or 3 or 4). Let's keep it simple, as far as that's possible with this table hanging 'round, not to mention the population pyramid. Jeronimo
Alright, those beautiful lines have been replaced by the bland spaces ;) The problem of them being an invisible addition remains however, but I suppose it could be pointed out in the WikiProject Countries page or even done by hand when articles appear. On the ---- though, I don't think I will continue using that, the solid line does look much better (just like it does in a table), especially in the new theme. -Scipius
May I comment that on my server, this page - like numerous others - has the diagrams overwriting the text. I tried to put it right by moving them around, but I see they've been put back. It particularly seems to be a problem when images are right-justified instead of left. Maybe I shouldn't have tried to alter it, but I can't believe I'm the only person experiencing this problem. Am I? --Deb
Looks fine to me (Linux/Konqueror 2.2.2 and Windows XP and Windows 2000/IE 6). Does this occur for all right justified tables? I have seen a similar problem on a Windows/IE 5.0 box at school but I was told that that browser must have been broken somehow. A screenshot might be good too. --mav

Here's what I get (sorry for the width): This may or may not be related. I use MSIE 5.0 on Win 98 SE.--user:Branko

But does the same problem exist for rendered tables? If it does then this does appear to be a problem with IE 5 and should be reported as a bug. --mav

I think the text added by 203.0.180.2 to this page and Holland might deserve a separate page, since this discussion has really not much to with the country itself. Jeronimo 08:28 Sep 17, 2002 (UTC)

This is the text, which I have removed for now: Some people consider this incorrect but, as against that, "Holland" is in fact the traditional English usage. Further, the term "the Netherlands" can also cause confusion - particularly when consulting historical materials - as it also refers to the whole geographical area of which only a part became independent under that name (the rest became independent later as Belgium, and was formerly the Austrian Netherlands or the Spanish Netherlands at various times). While using the term "Holland" may cause offence to some, this should be weighed against the possible offence to others from the irredentist connotations of the term "the Netherlands".

Once again 203.0.180.2, I'd prefer to move this issue to a SEPARATE ARTICLE instead of placing it here. Also, please talk about this here instead of relentlessly editing the pages (which I will then counter), which will bring both of us nowhere. Jeronimo

BTW, just to give some examples of how offended Belgians are by "the Netherlands": the names of the countries in Dutch (also spoken in half of Belgium) are Nederland and België. No Belgian EVER refers to his country as Netherlands, at best as the Low Countries, although even this is objected to by those living in the Ardennes. Jeronimo

I FULLY understand this perspective. However I consider that applying it simplistically leads to serious incompleteness. I have MYSELF met Belgians who objected to the nuance which is present in ENGLISH (they don't like the idea I once heard from a Dutchman that "there is no such place as Belgium"). Granted, it's been a while, but it happened. Further, the point that "usage does not make it right" - is wrong, in that traditionally English is descriptive rather than prescriptive like French (though Americans have grown prescriptive, and here in Australia it is mixed). See, for instance, Churchill complaining about people trying to call Leghorn "Livorno" when Leghorn was as traditional an English name as Rome or Venice. I am trying to place a usage that exists in English, and trying to give it a context. Since I note your objections, I am trying to find some brief formulation that will both accurately and objectively describe subjective feelings of all parties, yet respect actual English usage. I was prompted to this by the original incorrect claim that something that is a correct usage - is not. Now, how do we describe this actual and existing situation? I'm not trying to assert a "right/wrong", but to describe a range. Your suggestion of walking away from the article to be going on with has a defect. It entrenches an unresolved position, which is inappropriate unless the fact of being unresolved is itself indicated.

I should declare an interest. As a child, Belgian paratroops saved my life in Luluabourg.

Thanks for participating in the discussion, it makes it easier to get an end-result. My point is that while Holland is indeed the most frequently used way to refer to my country, it is (virtually) never done in official cases, for the simple reason that Holland does not refer to the entire Kingdom of the Netherlands. This can easily be compared with the use of (Great) Britain, which also used frequently, even though that does not include Northern Ireland - United Kingdom is the correct term. For that reason, we put the article about the Netherlands under that name, but refer to the usage of Holland in both articles. Of note, the word "Dutch" is in fact also "incorrectly" used. It originally referred to Germany (compare "deutsch" (German) and "duits" (Dutch)), but has become the adjective for The Netherlands.
Read the article from the perspective of the uninformed reader who does not know the meaning of "Dutch". If you follow the Dutch link it refers to the language but in the main article it is used to refer to a people or nationality. I think a brief explanation of Netherlands/Holland/Dutch would be appropriate. This would be particularly helpful to non-English-speakers (including possibly Nederlanders) puzzling over how to use these three different words in English. Keith from Calgary 02:00, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)Keith from Calgary

While the correct usage of the name is interesting, no more than a few lines should be spent on it in these articles, there are more interesting things to say about the country. However, since the topic (apparently, given the amount of text spent on it) is interesting in itself, we could create a new article about this subject and link to it from Netherlands and Holland.

As for the debate itself again, it is true that the entire area currently made up by Belgium and the Netherlands were once together referred to as the Low Countries. The current division began in the 16th century, when 7 northern provinces and other lands owned by them declared independence of the Spanish rulers. The name Belgium as such was not used until 1830, when the Belgians declared themselves independent of the Kingdom of the Netherlands instituted after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. Since the Belgians chose to separate from this nation, I would therefore consider Belgian anger over the continued use of the The Netherlands for the remaining part of the kingdom to be strange. Jeronimo

---

As the person who has been correcting the use of "Holland" in Wikipedia for some time now, I will share my view on the issue. The term "Holland" is, beside the name for a defunct county and province, also a colloquial name for the Netherlands as a whole and one that, like England is for the UK, is factually incorrect when used so. I strongly feel that we should strive for accuracy here and adopt the use of "Holland" to refer only to the county and province, and not the country. Think of it as an automatic disambiguation.

Regarding Belgians feeling insulted, this is IMHO nowhere near the issue you make it out to be. Let's examine the case in Dutch. The term "Netherlands" was originally a general name for the low-lying parts of the northwestern Holy Roman Empire and was naturally narrowed down when the Burgundian owned lands were put under a central government and became a separate entity in the HRE. This, as mentioned above, included present-day Belgium. Belgians do use the term "Netherlands" when discussing their country in this time-period, though often with the distinction "Southern-". After the split, this becomes the "Spanish" and then "Austrian" Netherlands, rather than just "Netherlands", because of the now existing United Provinces that would become the later Netherlands (the country). It is interesting to note that the full name of the next state, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, can more often, it seems, be found in Belgium then the Netherlands, where the "United" part is frequently left out.

In conclusion, Belgians don't use the term "Netherlands" to refer to themselves, unless in the 16th century and prior historical context and afterwards an effort is made to distinguish between the northern and southern Netherlands as separate entities, though this is made significantly easier in that the Dutch name for the Netherlands is "Nederland" (singular), rather than "Nederlanden" (plural). English, regrettably, does not make this distinction, leading to a potential confusion between the historic and modern "Netherlands". One solution is of course to use "Holland" to refer to the country.

However, one major problem with using "Holland" to refer to the whole country is that this takes away its proper, correct meaning (both geographically and politically), creating a need to disambiguate between Holland (the country) and Holland (the county/province). This is what I've been correcting. Texts dealing with the historic Low Countries often refer to Holland in the correct sense, i.e. the county, the county that played an important historic role in the region. In this context Holland is a different entity from Brabant, Flanders, Guelders, Utrecht, Frisia, etc. Though these counties and duchies no longer exist as such, there still remains a regional and historic identity that is negated when one uses "Holland" to refer to them all together and it too can lead to conflicting descriptions (such as Arnhem being the historic ducal capital of Guelders, but then also being in "Holland", which was a whole different county).

So, my view is this: "Netherlands" to be used for the country in any modern context, and only for the historic context when dealing with the 16th century and prior (even then a note in the text can probably make the difference sufficiently clear). In the 17th century there were two different Netherlands and they can be disambiguated accordingly. When talking of both together, 17th century or later, the term "Low Countries" could be used, or the term "Benelux" (though this one obviously only in a modern context). "Holland" remains as the name for the county/province, with a note at the top of the page making clear the country name is the "Netherlands".

The result is a convention that most closely resembles Dutch usage. Naturally, I'm not completely up-to-date on the history of the English usage and more than welcome any input, but I would guess it mirrors the Dutch to an extent (though the whole "Dutch" thing would be an example of English doing things differently). We don't need to remove every colloquial use of "Holland"; I've occasionally left it in when "Netherlands" was also used prominently in an article, but we shouldn't link "Holland" in such cases. There's no perfect solution, but IMHO this is as close as we can get.

As far as the colloquial use being preferable because it's supposedly more common in English, I think it's debatable. It may be, but so could be "England" for the UK, especially in everyday conversation (outside Britain of course). Consider however that most articles written about the Netherlands will be done by Dutchmen, who are more likely to use the "Netherlands" when referring to the country, so on Wikipedia at least "Netherlands" will probably outnumber "Holland" (even without my edits ;)).

Well, I hope I've been making some sense. Ask away if I haven't been. ;) Scipius 20:38 Sep 20, 2002 (UTC)

Yes I agree. Even if Holland is most often used to mean Netherlands (which I am not convinced of -- maybe 5 years ago) it is still too ambiguous for us to use here. Holland has its own particular historic significance and an article should be written about that at Holland. We have also agreed to use the conventional short form for nation names. --mav

The days of May, 4 and May, 5 are not holidays in the sense that people work normally. Should they be listed here? TeunSpaans 08:19 Nov 16, 2002 (UTC)

Who did that nice colorful map. I'm impressed. Do one for the counties of my state (Oregon) or tell me how to do that!!!! That was exceptional work whomever did it. Len Dmsar 10:34 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This is a truly excellent article. A few minutes work from a grammarian sorting out the more arcane usage and punctuation problems might qualify this for Wikipedia:Brilliant_prose. Also, I think the use of the word "libertine" is incorrect. Check a dictionary: "libertine". If there are no contrary comments in a day or so, I will reword that sentence. Zeke

Nederland v.s. (de) Nederlanden

Should this not perhaps be on The Netherlands?

Probably.


Yes I think so. The term The Netherlands describes the historically grown unity of the Low Lands Holland, Zeeland, Friesland, Utrecht and other provinces. In Dutch the name has a singular form "Nederland', but in Englisch and French (Les Pays- Bas) the plural form. I suppose this stems from the the term "The Republic of the United Netherlands; in the 17th and 18th century the country was officially called that way.

The front of the Dutch passport reads: "Koninkrijk der Nederlanden", clearly plural.

A kingdom (koninkrijk) is as archaic as the plurality in the name, so those fit together nicely. We've already gotten rid of the plural, I hope the queen will follow soon.

But every Dutchman I know talks about "Nederland".

The indepence given in the table is that of the HRE. Why is that independence chosen, and not that of French (Napoleonic) or German (Nazi) occupant? Admittedly, that first indepedence was more heroic than the latter two, as those two were given to us rather than that we fought for them, but that should not be a consideration for an encyclopedia.--branko

This is a good point, but the case could be made that in both the 1795-1815 period and the 1940-1945 period, while a foreign power did for a time succeed in occupying the Netherlands, it was during wartime, and by the time the dust had settled, they were no longer occupying the Netherlands. This does require looking at the French Revolution as a protracted period of civil and then international war in which the dust never really had a chance to settle, but that certainly is one way of looking at it. Shimmin 19:32, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Shouldnt the country box be moved to Kingdom of the Netherlands, and lots of links changed? Morwen 20:41, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

dependencies?

Following statement is a bit puzzling: A number of islands in the Caribbean Sea are dependencies of the Netherlands: the Netherlands Antilles (Nederlandse Antillen), a group of five islands, and Aruba, formerly part of the Antilles. The article of the Kingdom of the Netherlands says that this Kingdom consists of three countries with equal rights. If this is correct, I think it is a bit misleading to talk of dependencies. Gugganij 09:59, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I think it is more a matter of an ambiguity in the english language; dependency can mean something 'submissive' (if that's the right word), like a colony, but it can also mean 'province', which places it at an equal level, and I think the word is used in that sense here. If you can come up with a better word, that might help, but I can't think of one.

The Netherlands don't have two capitals

In the article it says that The Netherlands have two capitals: Amsterdam and The Hague. Technically, the city with the government seat by definition is the capital of a country. However, we Dutch always ignore this definition. Amsterdam is called the capital and The Hague is never called the capital, even though the government resides there. I am born and raised in The Hague, and I would love to call it the capital, but in this country everybody will think I am crazy. For foreigners seeking information on The Netherlands, it will be more helpful to follow (100%!) general Dutch practice instead of the formal defintion given above.


Note to support this, in the Dutch wikipedia only Amsterdam is given as capital of The Netherlands. I think indeed we should follow the definition of the country itself. I will change it, and if somebody has objections, state them here, so we can discus wether it should be changed back

I absolutely object. The whole reason for having words is that they mean something. The meaning of capital is the seat of government. What is really going on is a translation error that has propogated in to a lot of mis information.

The dutch article says that the hoofdstad is Amsterdam, and the regeringszetel is Hague. However, why do we think that hoofdstad means capital? It is surely clear from the dutch definition of capital and the english definition of hoofdstad is not the case. I am sure that the hoofdstad of Washington is Seattle, and the regeringszetel is Olympia. The dutch should read their own definition of those two words, and apply them correctly to all the articles that they write.

Instead, we are in a situation where the somebody once translated hoofdstad to capital. And since then, the dutch have believed everybody that their capitals were their main cities, and everybody has believed the dutch that their biggest city is the capital. In Mexico, they have no lemons. So the used their word for lemon to mean lime. People accept that in Mexico, "limon" means lime. Nobody goes around saying that in Mexico, for some strange reason, the lemons are green. This is a major error that has plagued the world for a long time. And I think that this error could be corrected now. Dutch articles on states where the main city is not the capital should be changed as follows:

staat,hoofdstad,regeringszetel

veracruz,veracruz,jalapa

quebec,montreal,quebec

New York,New York, Albany

USA,New York,Washington

Canada,Toronto,Ottawa

Nigeria,Lagos,Abudja

New Zealand,Aukland,Wellington

British Columbia,Vancouver,Victoria


This article should say that the capital is the Hague, and that for centuries, the dutch word for major city was erroneously translated as capital, causing a lot of confusion


Can you provide sources for this assertion? In fact the Dutch Wikipedia articles already state the correct capital cities for the regions you described. I do not quite know where you got the idea that the Dutch call their biggest city their capital city only because it's the biggest city? This is not the case. Amsterdam is named the capital of The Netherlands in Article 32 of the Dutch constitution. Den Haag is not named once in the constitution. The Dutch constitution calls for the head of state (king/queen) to be crowned in the capital city and names that to be Amsterdam. Moving the seat of Dutch government from Den Haag to Utrecht can therefore be done without any problem but crowning the king can only be done in what the constitution names 'hoofdstad'. The constitutional argument is a strong one FOR Amsterdam being the capital. Another argument FOR are the many other examples such as Ivory Coast, Bolivia or Chile where the nominal capital is also different from the seat of government. I do not think that your assertion that 'the dutch word for major city was erroneously translated as capital' is correct. The literal meaning of both 'capital' and 'hoofdstad' derives from the latin 'capitis' or head. Furthermore the Dutch do not always call the largest city the 'hoodstad'; in fact several Dutch provinces have their capitals in cities other than the largest city:
  • Province, Capital, Largest City
  1. Noord Holland, Haarlem, Amsterdam
  2. Zuid Holland, Den Haag, Rotterdam
  3. Noord Brabant, Den Bosch, Eindhoven
  4. Flevoland, Lelystad, Almere
  5. Overijssel, Zwolle, Enschede
  6. Gelderland, Arnhem, Apeldoorn

Yes, that's fully six out of 12 provinces that have their named capital in a city other than the largest city. I really do not know where you got the idea of a 'mistranslation' from. Chelman 18:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

This is not an issue of sources. This assertion is algerbraic. But, if you look in the dutch wikipedia article on regeringszetel, you will find that its definition is exactly the same as the definition for capital. On the other hand, the wikipedia definition for hoofdstad is nothing like the english definition for capital. Just because they have ananlogous routes does not mean that they are the same. Embarasada is spanish for pregnant.

And the constitution does not say that the capital is amsterdam. It says that the king should be sworn in in the hoofdstad, amsterdam. This is not proof that hoofstad is a translation for capital. I am pretty sure that the Queen of Canada is sworn in in Westminster. But Canada's capital, which is not mentioned in the constitution as far as I know--but don't quote me on that-- is Ottawa, ON. There are many states where the capital is not declared in the constitution. And there are tons, for example Alberta, Mexico, where the constitution says that the capital shall be a certain city until the legislature decides to put it somewhere else.

Your provinces argument is a strong one. I will say then that I don't know what the translation for hoofdstad is, but that the translation for capital is regeringszetel. I bet you that if you look up regeringszetel in any dutch dutch dictionary, and capital in an english english dictionary, you will find matching definitions.

There just might not be any other state in the world with an example of a hoofdstad, a city that the constitution states is where the head of state be sworn in.


As i pointed out in section 1: The linguistic argument of 'hoofdstad' meaning: 'head city' is correct but serves neither side of the argument since the english word for capital also literally means ' head city' from the Latin word for head. The German word for capital is 'Hauptstadt' which also means 'head city'. This argument therefore clearly serves no purpose in asserting that hoofdstad = capital = mistranslation. Chelman 17:33, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Chelman is absolutely correct. And usually, the hoofdstad is also the regeringszetel, but in The Netherlands, it's not. Easy as that. And as far as I know, the Dutch always follow the national definition by the state itself: so Albany is the hoofdstad of NY, and Washington DC is the hoodstad of the USA. Sixtus 19:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Chelman and Sixtus are correct. Every Dutch - English dictionary translates hoofdstad as capital city and regeringszetel as seat of government. English speakers don't seem to distinguish between official and de facto capitals. The governments of Cote d'Ivoire, Bolivia and Chile are indeed all based in other cities then the capital. I'll list them all down here with the capital listed first, followed by the seat of goverment.
  • Cote d'Ivoire: Yamoussoukro, Abidjan.
  • Bolivia: Sucre, La Paz.
  • Chile: Santiago, Valparaiso (houses the legislature, the sovereign body of any democratic state).
I hope this will prove once and for all that Amsterdam is the only and constitutional (as Chelman points out correctly) capital of the Netherlands and that The Hague is the seat of government. --84.26.109.69 20:07, 17 January 2006

See also Capital of the Netherlands. Piet 09:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

History

I have corrected an inaccuracy in the historical overview, as it wasn't Philip II who finally acceeded in the independence of the Netherlands, but Philip IV. I then extended the first part of the overview a bit, adding some more basic information. --Martin Wisse 09:25, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Names subsection?

The link to the 'Names' subsection in the first paragraphs leads nowhere. Was this section deleted? Mlessard 03:42, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fixed. -- Naive cynic 09:20, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

so whats up with that shit. get back u dont know me like thatWhat does this introduction mean when it says that Netherlands "is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands?" Is there a NON-European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands? Does this refer to Greenland, the Dutch Antilles, etc? Even if this is the case, I think the choice of words is a little confusing and should maybe be reconsidered. Schmeitgeist 22:29, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

Greenland is a colony/dependancy/part of Denmark. The Kingdom of the Netherlands is a "federation" of three equal (in theory)partners: the Netherlands, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles. I think it is explained adequately in the article Kingdom of the Netherlands, but if you can come up with a clear formulation here, that would be nice. Eugene van der Pijll 23:25, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Economy

"Prices keep rising, and incomes are dropping. The Netherlands' prosperous times are over for now." I think this needs rewriting. "Prices keep rising" - just like *everywhere*. Every country has inflation, and inflation in the Netherlands is not high (2.1% according to the CIA factbook. As for incomes falling, where is the source for this? I can't find any information on it, I doubt it's true though. As for the Netherlands no longer being prosperous, that's just silly. Joolz 16:25, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I've just changed this section without having read this comment, but I agree entirely. The previous text seemed a bit politically motivated. The rate of inflation has decreased since 2001 (5%), indeed. Employment growth did come to a standstill, though, and incomes, notably those in the public sector, have not gone up. It is ridiculous, however, to state that the introduction of the euro has led to this economic decline of the past couple of years, so I've removed that suggestion. Sixtus 12:47, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Exaggeration on regional issues (POV?)

The text says: "People from the southern provinces Limburg and Noord Brabant (Northern Brabant), which are mainly Roman Catholic, retain some bad sentiments against Holland. During the time of the United Provinces these areas did not have any political liberties and were exploited as colonies. A culture of this exploitation and the feeling of being exploited remained until the second world war; only after this war, with the true modernisation of the Dutch society did they become more free and did their relative power increase. The anti-Holland sentiment remained however, and is still relatively alive in these parts of the country." This really seems rather exaggerated to me. It's true that the power in the United Provinces lied mainly with Holland (and somewhat with Zeeland and Utrecht), however to say that the other provinces "did not have any political liberties and were exploited as colonies" is simply not true and POV. Also, the catholic emancipation of the south started well before WW II, in education, politics (a catholic party was in every cabinet in the period of 1922-1940). And to say that 'anti-Holland sentiment remained' might be true, but not as strong as it is implied here. I think most people wouldn't really care (maybe make jokes about it, sure), or have a minor grudge, but regional tensions are certainly nothing like they are in all the neighbouring countries (Belgium (Flemish vs. Wallonia), Germany (Bavaria) and the UK (England vs. Wales, Scotland, N-Ireland). So, I'll change that if no-one objects. Junes 17:40, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I had the same feeling when I read the text for the first time. However, I don't think we can completely erase the whole issue, if only because someone from Brabant or Limburg will start protesting soon. I suggest someone write a more balanced, neutral and above all shorter text. The length of this paragraph compared to the size of the entire page suggests we are on the brink of civil war. If no one opposses, I'll start working on it in a few days. Dengo 17.20, 18 Mar 2005 (CET)
There appears to be a slight historical mix-up, here. The Seven United Netherlands of the Republic were theoretically equal. But with the Treaty of Munster the Republic also acquired some lands south of the borders of the Seven Provinces. These States' Territories did indeed not have the same rights as the members of the Republic. I can't comment on the current feelings about this though, except for the impression that in The Netherlands, views on the relations between Holland and the other parts of the country appear to differ quite a bit between Holland and the other parts of the country. Aliter 23:17, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It is correct to state that these territories did not have the same rights as the other members, but that doesn't constitute 'exploitation' per se. In addition, when talking about such issues, it is important to realize that the question of which entity had what rights in the Republic is a very complex issue: some states had more rights and influence than others, while there were also cities with their own rights and stakes. Amsterdam was in Holland, but like other cities, it had its own representatives etc etc. I'm getting carried away here, but you'll get where I'm going: the Republic was way too diverse to simply say the catholic territories were exploited. The only thing is: they were governed directly from The Hague. Apart from all that, I just noticed another mix-up: a clear distinction should be made between the political rights of the territories and the rights of Catholics throughout the Dutch Republic, who lived mainly but in no way exclusively in these territories. But this is all part of the history section. This paragraph is just for clearing up something about the name Holland. I'm rewriting it now. Dengo 18.14, 19 Mar 2005 (CET)