The Netherlands also known as Holland, a country in northwestern Europe, is known for its flat landscape, canals, tulip fields and windmills.
The official name of the country is the Kingdom of Netherlands.
“Netherlands” literally means “Lower Countries,” influenced by its low land and flat geography, with only about 50% of its land exceeding one meter above sea level.
Netherlands is bordered by Germany in east and Belgium in south.
The official language of the Netherlands is Dutch.
As of 1 January 2016, the population of Netherlands was estimated to be 17,004,993 people.
With an area of 41,526 square kilometer (16,033 square miles), Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
Amsterdam is the Netherlands’ capital, known for its artistic heritage, elaborate canal system and narrow houses with gabled facades, legacies of the city’s 17th-century Golden Age.
Other major cities include Rotterdam, the Hague, Eindhoven, Utrecht and Eindhoven.
The Netherlands also includes islands in the Caribbean sea named Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius.
About 20% of the Netherlands is located below sea level.
The Vaalserberg (“Mount Vaals”) is a hill 322.7 meters (1058.7 feet) in height, the highest point in the Netherlands.
There are 20 national parks in the Netherlands.
The largest national park is De Hoge Veluwe, which is best explored on one of its thousand free-to-use white bikes.
Tourism is important to the country, and many visitors come to see Dutch art, architecture – and the flowers.
Keukenhof Gardens is the world’s largest flower garden, with 7 million flower bulbs surrounded by tulip fields.
Tulips are a major industry, and the Dutch produce billions of bulbs a year — around 80 percent of the world’s tulips.
Tulips originate from the Himalaya area, they were brought to Turkey from there. Around 1560 they were brought from Turkey to the Netherlands.
The windmill is one of the best known icons of Netherlands. Of the 10,000 windmills in use in the Netherlands around 1850, about 1000 are still standing.
The village of Giethoorn, in the province of Overijssel, does not have any roads. All transport is done by water over one of the many canals. It is known as the “Venice of the Netherlands”.
There are three times as many bicycles as there are cars in the Netherlands.
A study from Rutgers University reported that the Netherlands has the lowest rates of serious injuries per million kilometers cycled.
87% of the population speak English as a second language.
There are around 1,000 museums in Netherlands.
The Netherlands has produced many world-class painters, such as Vincent van Gogh, Rembrandt, Jan Vermeer, Jan Steen or Piet Mondriaan.
Van Gogh Museum and the Kröller-Müller Museum house the largest Van Gogh collections in the world.
The herring with chopped raw onions and pickles is a national dish.
There is an enormous variety of tastes to delight cheese-lovers in the Netherlands.
Dutch brewery Heineken is the 3rd largest beer brewer in the world with over 140 breweries in over 70 countries.
In the Netherlands a person drinks on average 74 liters of beer a year.
Soft drugs as cannabis in all its forms (marijuana, hashish, hash oil) and hallucinogenic mushrooms (so called magic mushrooms ) are legal under condition of so called “personal use”.
Dutch people are the tallest in the world, with an average height of 184 centimeters (6 feet) for men and 170 centimeters (5 feet 7 inches) for women.
It was a Dutch physician who lived in the 16th century who thought of adding juniper berry to the common brandy. In doing so, he created the first type of gin.
The microscope, the telescope, pendulum clock and the mercury thermometer are all 16th or 17th century Dutch inventions.
The modern day orange carrot wasn’t cultivated until Dutch growers in the late 16th century took mutant strains of the purple carrot and gradually developed them into the sweet, plump, orange variety we have today.
Orange is Netherlands national color and the color of the Dutch Royal Family.
The Wilhelmus is the national anthem of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the oldest national anthem in the world.Both the words and music date from the 16th century.
The Dutch have a saying: “God made the Earth, but the Dutch made Holland.”