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The '''Netherlands''' (Dutch: ''Nederland'') is a country in the [[European Union]] in northwestern Europe, north of Belgium and France. It is a part of [[the Kingdom of the Netherlands]] (''Koninkrijk der Nederlanden''). It is bordered by [[Belgium]] and [[Germany]], and has a total population of 16.5 million (2009). Its system of government is [[constitutional monarchy]]. The country is often referred to as "Holland", this was originally the name of two densely populated provinces of the country (North-Holland and South-Holland), the cities of [[Amsterdam]], [[Rotterdam]] and [[The Hague]] all lie in these provinces that have always been the most influential regions in the Netherlands. The official language is [[Dutch]] and the people are referred to in English as Dutchmen or collectively as the Dutch.
The major ethnic groups in the Netherlands are [[Dutch]] 94%, Surinamese 2%, Asians 2% and others 2%.
To avoid a repeat of the disaster the Dutch began construction of the "Delta Project" to protect the country from future inundations. Begun in 1953 and completed in 2002 the Delta Project is considered a modern wonder of civil engineering. After [[Hurricane Katrina]], a delegation of American engineers was invited by the Dutch government to see how the project works and how its technology can be applied in the United States for low-lying cities like [[New Orleans]].
==Major cities==
[[Amsterdam]], named for the Amstel river, is the largest city, and the capital of the Netherlands. Amsterdam is ringed by an extensive system of concentric canals. The seat of government, however, is located for historical reasons in [[The Hague]] (''Den Haag'' or '' 's Gravenhage'' in Dutch. ).
[[Eindhoven]] is the location of the giant electronics corporation, Philips (full name: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.), with annual revenue equivalent to about $40 billion. (The U.S. corporation [[General Electric]] has revenues of about $150 billion, but much of it is from non-electronics businesses). The Eindhoven area is known for its high concetration of high-tech industires, which include ASML, the world primary producer of lithography system for the production of semiconductors, and ''Océ'', a leading producer of printers and copiers.
==Business==
The Netherlands is the home of the Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell, whose full name is ''[[Royal Dutch Shell'' or ''Koninklijke Nederlandse Shell'']] . Other well known Dutch or partly Dutch multinationals are ''[[Unilever'']], a company owning many household brands, ''ING Group'', a banking group, ''Ahold'', an international chain of supermarkets, ''Reed Elsevier'', a publishing house, ''Nielsen Company'', owner of the [[Yellow Pages]], and ''Randstad Holding'', a company providing ''[[human resource services'']]. The famous ''Dutch East India Company'', known in Dutch as ''Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie'' or VOC, which dominated trade in with South-East Asia in the 17th century, is regarded as the first multinational in history.
==Customs==
The Netherlands has long been famous for its production of flowers, and also for a related economic event, the "[[tulip mania]]" of 1636-1637. [[Tulip]]s were traded on stock exchanges, and bid up to fantastic prices by people who understood that the prices were crazy but hoped to sell at a profit to even crazier investors. Many people mortgaged their homes for a single tulip bulb and in one case an entire brewery was exchanged for a few bulbs. As with all [[economic bubble]]s, when bidding began to lag people tried to sell and the bubble burst with disastrous consequences. Since then the Dutch have been renowned for their carefulness with money and have established a significant presence in the banking and financial sectors.
==Queen's Day==
April 30th is known as Queen's Day (''Koninginnedag'') - the national holiday to mark the official birthday of the monarch. This is actually the birthday of former Queen Juliana (Queen Beatrix's mother) but has been kept as the official holiday because of the better weather (Queen Beatrix's actual birthday is 31 January). Queen's Day is the one day of the year when ordinary Netherlanders are permitted to sell goods on the streets without a license. Consequently the whole country is turned into a gigantic flea market (garage sale). The primary effect of this is that people buy goods they do not want or need, solely in order to sell them the following year. In an act of patriotism, most of the populace wear orange colored clothing (the national color) to identify with the Royal House Of Orange-Nassau.
Those not involved with selling their surplus belongings celebrate the national holiday at outdoors parties in the cities or with fine weather, spend the free day on a terrace of a pub, or cycle in the national ''Fietsen op Dijken '' tour around the nation's dikes.
==Anne Frank==
==Politics==
Wilhelmus Simon Petrus Fortuijn, known as Pim Fortuyn (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈpɪm fɔrˈtœyn]; February 19, 1948 – May 6, 2002) was a Dutch politician, civil servant, sociologist, author and professor who formed his own party, Pim Fortuyn List (Lijst Pim Fortuyn or LPF).
Fortuyn was the centre of several controversies for his views about immigrants and Islam. He called Islam "a backward culture", and said that if it were legally possible he would close the borders for Muslim immigrants. He was labelled a far-right populist by his opponents and in the media, but he fiercely rejected this label and explicitly distanced himself from "far-right" politicians such as the Belgian Filip Dewinter, the Austrian Jörg Haider, or Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Pen whenever compared to them. While Fortuyn compared his own politics to centre-right politicians such as Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, he also admired former Dutch Prime Minister Joop den Uyl, a socialist. Fortuyn however repeatedly described himself and LPF's ideology as pragmatism and not populism. Fortuyn was openly homosexual and intellectual.
Geert Wilders (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɣeːrt ˈʋɪldərs]; born 6 September 1963) is a politician and leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), the third leading political party in the Netherlands. Born in the city of Venlo, raised as a Roman Catholic and having left the Church at his coming of age, Wilders attributes his politics to his support for what he calls '[[Judeo-Christian ]] values'. He formed many of his political views on his travels to Israel, as well as the neighbouring Arab countries. His early job at the Dutch social insurance agency propelled him into politics, where he worked as a speechwriter for the conservative-liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). In 1996, he moved to the city of Utrecht, where he was elected to the city council and later to the House of Representatives of the Netherlands.
Citing irreconcilable differences over the party's position on the accession of Turkey to the European Union, Wilders left the VVD in 2004 to form his own party, the Party for Freedom. Since then, he has been outspoken on a number of issues such as immigration, freedom of speech, and Islam, not only in The Netherlands, but also on an international scale, where he became one of the proponents of anti-jihadism[[jihad]]ism.
Wilders has pleaded, for instance, for a hard line against what he called the "street terror" exerted by minorities in Dutch cities. His controversial 2008 film about Islam in the Netherlands, "Fitna", has received international attention. On 21 January 2009, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal ordered his prosecution for what it said was "the incitement to hatred and discrimination". Wilders was also controversially banned from entering the United Kingdom between 12 February 2009 and 13 October 2009, with the Home Office viewing his presence as a "threat to one of the fundamental interests of society". The ban was overturned after Wilders appealed. He visited the UK on 16 October 2009,[9] and again in March 2010, to show his film.
In March 2010, it was announced that a documentary film about Geert Wilders was due to be released in the United States; Wilders himself was writing a book and producing a sequel to his film, both to be released after the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands in June 2010. Wilders' gains toward becoming next Dutch prime minister according to polls in March 2010 have triggered concerns of political violence in the Netherlands or against Dutch nationals according to the country’s National Anti-terrorism Coordinator.
Wilders ' policies against Islam have him labeled as extreme-right, but his economic policies are fairly left wing.
==History==