Here in Portugal most people say Holanda, although there are some that say Países Baixos. It only confuses things further because of the term we use for the language and nationality. For instance, Ele é Holandês - He is Dutch A lingua holandesa - The Dutch language It's only natural that people confuse the two... Anyway, years ago I met this Dutch guy at a conference here in Lisbon and he explained to me the difference so I already knew. What confuses me is why you say "países" baixos, i.é., low "countries" instead of "pais" baixo or low "country". Why the plural?
i think it was a term that included parts of belgium. maybe it has something to do with them previously being referred to collectively as "the low countries" and when netherlands became its own country, they kept the terminology. or maybe it's like the "united states" in that the plural at one point made more sense than it does now.
in all the languages i'm acquainted with (except dutch) the official word for the country is plural. and the united states part is quite a good guess, since the first names for the independent country there all had verenigde (united) in them.
I was in Netherlands a month ago. I stayed in Rotterdam, but also visited Amsterdam and Den Haag. I have no idea if these cities belong to the Holland provinces or not. I enjoyed Rotterdam a lot. Amsterdam was a bit too confusing.
Because the official name refers to the old days of the republic, a confederation of the 7 provinces the Republic of the 7 United Netherlands, now it's the Kingdom of the Netherlands or in Dutch Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden. Nobody uses that mouthfull so it is shortened to Nederland.
Which IIRC contain the bulk of the population and most of the Randstad save Utrecht and Flevoland provinces. Or, not all of the Netherlands is Holland - all of Holland is the Netherlands, though.
Grew up near Holland, Michigan with a lot of Dutch-Americans. I don't think I heard Netherlands till high school.
Yup. In Dutch: Koninkrijk der Nederlanden To differentiate with the situation before Belgium split off in 1830, the name before 1830 is Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden (the United Kingdom of the Netherlands).
I used to live in South Holland in England. The former swamp was drained by Dutch engineers for farming use in the 18th century. I was also born and raised in a town largely designed by Dutch archtitects from where William of Orange launched his invasion of Ireland.