Portal:Netherlands
Welcome to the Netherlands Portal
Welkom bij het Nederlandportaal!
The Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands consists of twelve provinces; it borders Germany to the east and Belgium to the south, with a North Sea coastline to the north and west. It shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany, and Belgium. The official language is Dutch, with West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland. Dutch, English, and Papiamento are official in the Caribbean territories. People from the Netherlands are referred to as Dutch.
The Netherlands has been a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a unitary structure since 1848. The country has a tradition of pillarisation (separation of citizens into groups by religion and political beliefs) and a long record of social tolerance, having legalised prostitution and euthanasia, along with maintaining a liberal drug policy. The Netherlands allowed women's suffrage in 1919 and was the first country to legalise same-sex marriage in 2001. Its mixed-market advanced economy has the eleventh-highest per capita income globally. The Hague holds the seat of the States General, cabinet, and Supreme Court. The Port of Rotterdam is the busiest in Europe. Schiphol is the busiest airport in the Netherlands, and the fourth busiest in Europe. Being a developed country, the Netherlands is a founding member of the European Union, eurozone, G10, NATO, OECD, and WTO, as well as a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. It hosts intergovernmental organisations and international courts, many of which are in The Hague. (Full article...)
Selected biography
Rienks won the gold medal in the men's double sculls at the 1988 Summer Olympics, alongside Ronald Florijn. At the 1996 Summer Olympics, he repeated his gold medal performance winning the eight with coxswain event with the Holland Acht (Holland Eight). He also competed at the 1984 and 2000 Olympics but finished outside the podium.
With Henk-Jan Zwolle he won the gold medal in the double sculls competition at the 1991 World Rowing Championships. He also won three silver medals at the world championships in 1989 (double sculls), 1994 and 1995 (eights).
Did you know (auto-generated)

- ... that according to scholarship published in 2023, Maria de Knuijt, rather than her husband, was actually the main patron of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer?
- ... that Princess Margriet of the Netherlands was born in Canada's capital, but outside the country's legal jurisdiction?
- ... that on 9 August 1673 a Dutch naval squadron reconquered New York from the English?
- ... that the H. J. Lovink Pumping Station, a national monument of the Netherlands, was used to reclaim the Flevopolder?
- ... that Tjarda Struik is the Netherlands' first female mayor to be nearly blind, and a TikTok influencer?
- ... that the grave of a Dutch officer and his dog who were killed in the Battle of Nanggulon is a designated cultural object in Indonesia?
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