Holland's Eleven Provinces
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Why visit the towns and cities of Holland?
Holland is not the Netherlands and vice-versa
If you say "Holland" everyone knows what you mean -- that little country with all the windmills and wooden shoes and tulips. But technically, Holland is the area of the original 7 stadholders who formed the country centuries ago. Today, the province of Holland has been split up into Noord-Holland, with Haarlem and Amsterdam, and Zuid-Holland with the Hague and Rotterdam.
Again, when you say Holland everyone knows what you mean. If you are actually in Noord-Holland or Zuid-Holland, people will not think badly of you, and they may even say Holland back to you. In the rest of the Netherlands, I think it's taken as a subtle unintended insult to those who live outside "Holland." It's better to say the Netherlands.
"Aha," you say, as you notice that I use the word Holland liberally throughout this site when I really should write "Netherlands." There is one one reason I do this: people on the Internet are searching for Holland more commonly than the Netherlands, so my site has to reflect this common misunderstanding. Otherwise I would love to be correct and use "the Netherlands" everywhere.
By saying the Netherlands you are referring to the "low countries" which make up all areas Dutch. The Netherlands was comprised of these eleven provinces until Flevoland was drained and made usable in the 1960's and later:
- Noord-Holland -- Haarlem
- Zuid-Holland -- The Hague (Den Haag)
- Zeeland -- Middelburg
- Friesland -- Leeuwarden
- Groningen -- Groningen
- Drenthe -- Assen
- Overijssel -- Zwolle
- Gelderland -- Arnhem
- Utrecht -- Utrecht
- Noord-Brabant -- 's Hertogenbosch
- Limburg -- Maastricht