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| Netherlands Land and People |
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The Netherlands has 12
provinces: Zeeland, South Holland, North Holland, Friesland, and
Groningen, all of which border on the North Sea; and North Brabant,
Limburg, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overijssel, Drenthe,
and Flevoland. The country is mostly low-lying. About 40% of it is
situated below sea level and comprises territory (mostly in the western
part of the country) reclaimed from the sea since the 13th cent. and
guarded by dunes and dikes. The land is crossed by drainage canals, and
the main rivers, the Scheldt, Maas (Fr., Meuse), IJssel, Waal,
and Lower Rhine, are canalized and interconnected by artificial
waterways, linked with the river and canal systems of Belgium and
Germany. The Scheldt estuary includes the former islands of Walcheren,
North Beveland, and South Beveland. The West Frisian Islands are
located off the northern coast of the Netherlands.
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Netherlands is extremely densely populated. The maritime provinces
include many of the famous cities of the Netherlands—Amsterdam
and Rotterdam (the chief ports) and The Hague, Leiden, Delft, Utrecht,
Dordrecht, Schiedam, and Vlissingen (Flushing). In addition, Alkmaar,
Gouda, and Edam are internationally known as cheese markets, and
Haarlem is the center of the flower-raising district. The inland
provinces have generally poor and sandy soil. Leading cities include
Breda, 's Hertogenbosch, Eindhoven, and Tilburg in North Brabant;
Maastricht and Heerlen in Limburg; and Arnhem and Nijmegen in
Gelderland. |
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Linguistic
conformity to Dutch, the official language, is complete except in
Friesland, where Frisian is spoken in places. After the Netherlands
obtained independence in the late 16th cent., it became largely
Protestant. By the mid-1990s, however, Roman Catholics, concentrated in
the southern provinces, made up the largest religious group (33%),
while 25% were Protestant. Muslims are a small but growing minority;
almost 40% of the population claims no religious affiliation. The
archbishop of Utrecht is the Roman Catholic primate of the Netherlands.
The
country's principal public universities are at Leiden, Utrecht,
Groningen, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam. There are also Catholic
universities at Nijmegen and Tilburg and a Calvinist university at
Amsterdam. Specialized higher education is offered by Erasmus Univ.,
technical schools at Delft, Eindhoven, and Enschede, and by the schools
of economics at Rotterdam and Tilburg.
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