1.
De Bilt
–
De Bilt is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht. De Bilt had a population of 42,097 in 2014 and is the seat of the headquarters of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute and it is the ancestral home and namesake for the prominent Vanderbilt family of the United States. The municipality of De Bilt consists of the cities, towns, villages and/or districts, Bilthoven, De Bilt, Groenekan, Hollandsche Rading, Maartensdijk. Dutch Topographic map of the municipality of De Bilt, June 2015 Media related to De Bilt at Wikimedia Commons Official Website
De Bilt
–
Church in De Bilt
De Bilt
–
De Bilt
2.
List of municipalities of the Netherlands
–
There are 388 regular municipalities and 3 public bodies, also referred to as special municipalities, in the Netherlands. Municipalities are the administrative division in the Netherlands and are subdivisions of their respective provinces. Their duties are delegated to them by the government and they are ruled by a municipal council that is elected every four years. Municipal mergers have reduced the number of municipalities by two-thirds since the first official boundaries were created in the mid 19th century. Municipalities themselves are subdivided into districts and neighbourhoods for administrative. These municipalities come in a range of sizes, Westervoort is the smallest at 7.84 km2. Schiermonnikoog is both the least populous municipality and has the lowest population density with 938 inhabitants for a density of 21/km2, Amsterdam has the highest population with 810,909 residents, whereas The Hague is most densely populated with a density of 6, 131/km2. As a second level administrative division municipalities are the tier of public administration in the Netherlands after the central government. The Netherlands is a unitary state, which means that the central government is supreme. The different levels do, however, make work agreements, which give municipalities a certain degree of independence in their policy decisions. Municipalities are responsible for a variety of public services, which include land-use planning, public housing, management and maintenance of local roads, waste management. After the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010 three special municipalities were formed and these municipalities function the same as regular municipalities and are grouped together as the Caribbean Netherlands and are not part of a province. The municipalities are governed by both a board of mayor and aldermen and a municipal council, the municipal council, which is titled island council in the special municipalities, is elected every four years. The number of members in the ranges from nine members for the smallest municipalities to forty-five members for the largest. It is the highest administrative body in the municipality and controls public policy, the mayor is appointed for six years at a time by the crown and the alderman are elected by the municipal council, typically after each municipal election. The mayor is responsible for order and is the first in command during emergencies. The exact portfolio for each person differs between each municipality, official municipal boundaries were first drawn up in 1832 in the Netherlands after a cadastre was formed. The Municipalities Act of 1851, written by prime minister Thorbecke, throughout the years, less populous municipalities have been merged
List of municipalities of the Netherlands
–
Map of municipalities of the Netherlands after the mergers of 1 January 2015
3.
Sint Jacobiparochie
–
Sint Jacobiparochie is a town in the municipality of Het Bildt in Friesland, the Netherlands. It lies about 13 km north of Franeker and has approximately 1,700 inhabitants, St. Jacobiparochie was founded in the 16th century, largely by Dutch settlers from South Holland. Today, both Dutch and West Frisian are spoken in the town, the town was originally named Wijngaarden, while St. Jacobiparochie was the name used for the local Roman Catholic parish. Eventually, the name for the parish came to be used as the name for the town as well, the change in name may have been due in part to the fact that the soil in Het Bildt was not suitable for growing grapes, making the original name inappropriate. There was a station on the North Friesland Railway which opened in 1902 and it reopened to passengers in May 1940 and closed to passengers again in October 1942. Final closure took place in May 1966
Sint Jacobiparochie
Sint Jacobiparochie
–
Sint Jacobiparochie
4.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
–
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
5.
Netherlands
–
The Netherlands is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
Netherlands
–
The Netherlands in 5500 BC
Netherlands
–
Flag
Netherlands
–
The Netherlands in 500 BC
Netherlands
–
An oak figurine found in
Willemstad, North Brabant (4500 BC).
6.
Provinces of the Netherlands
–
The most populous province is South Holland, with over 3.5 million inhabitants in 2009. With approximately 381,000 inhabitants, Zeeland has the smallest population, in terms of area, Friesland is the largest province with a total area of 5,749 km2. If water is excluded, Gelderland is the largest province in terms of area at 4,972 km2, Utrecht is the smallest at 1,449 km2. In total about 13,000 people were employed by the administrations in 2009. The provinces of the Netherlands are joined in the Association of Provinces of the Netherlands and this organisation promotes the common interests of the provinces in the national government of the Netherlands in The Hague and within the EU in Brussels. The government of each province consists of three parts, The States-Provincial is the provincial parliament elected every four years. The number of members varies between 39 and 55, depending on the number of inhabitants of the province, being a member is a part-time job. The main task of the States-Provincial is to scrutinise the work of the provincial government, the Provincial Executive is a college elected from among the members of the States-Provincial and charged with most executive tasks. Each province has three and seven deputies, each having their own portfolio. The task of the Provincial Executive is the management of the province. The Kings Commissioner is a person appointed by the Crown who presides over the States-Provincial as well as over the Provincial Executive. The Commissioner is appointed for a term of six years, after which reappointment for another term is possible, the members of the States-Provincial are elected every four years in direct elections. To a large extent, the political parties are enlisted in these elections in the national elections. The chosen provincial legislators elect the members of the national Senate within three months after the provincial elections, the elections for the water boards take place on the same date as the provincial elections. The last three elections were held in 2007,2011 and in 2015. The provinces of the Netherlands have 7 core tasks, Sustainable spatial development, also, provinces have income from a part of the Vehicle Excise Duty. Several provinces have made a profit in the past from privatising utility companies originally owned or partly owned by the provinces. An example is Essent, which was owned by six provinces
Provinces of the Netherlands
–
Flags of the provinces flown at the
Hofvijver in
The Hague.
Provinces of the Netherlands
7.
Friesland
–
Friesland or Frisia is a province in the northwest of the Netherlands. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of Flevoland, northeast of North Holland, in 2010, the province had a population of 646,000 and a total area of 5,749 km2. The capital and seat of the government is the city of Leeuwarden. Since 2017, Arno Brok is the Kings Commissioner in the province, a coalition of the Labour Party, the Christian Democratic Appeal, and the Frisian National Party forms the executive branch. The province is divided into 24 municipalities, the area of the province was once part of the ancient, larger region of Frisia. The official languages of Friesland are West Lauwers Frisian and Dutch, a proto-Frisian culture slowly began to emerge around 400–200 BC known for its artificial dwelling hills as a defence against the sea. The Roman claim on Frisia began in 12 BC with the campaign of Nero Claudius Drusus in Germania, after a series of costly battles against the Frisians, the Romans were suddenly sworn fealty. The de facto independence they later enjoyed as a Roman vassal shows that this might have been a mostly diplomatic decision based on the temporary favourable bargaining position. Together with other Germanic tribes such as the Salians and the Batavii they managed to keep the north of the Lower Rhine mostly free from Roman influence. The early eighth-century AD is known for the Frisian Kingdom, king Redbad, after incorporation into the Frankish empire, Friesland was divided into three parts. The westernmost part developed at the start of the second millennium into the County of Holland, while the remainder of Frisia had no feudal overlord and that ended when Charles V added Frisia to the Habsburg Netherlands as Lordship of Frisia. Under Napoleon, the department was named Frise, after Napoleon was defeated in 1813, the department became part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands as the province of Friesland. Friesland is the largest province of the Netherlands if one includes areas of water, in terms of land area only, the provinces highest point is at 45 metres above sea level, on the island of Vlieland. There are four parks, Schiermonnikoog, De Alde Feanen, Lauwersmeer. The ten urban areas in Friesland with the largest population are, The province is divided into 24 municipalities, the province of Friesland has an oceanic climate. In 2010, Friesland had a population of 646,305, the years 1880–1900 show slower population growth due to a farm crisis in which 20,000 Frisians emigrated to the United States of America. Since the late Middle Ages, Friesland has been renowned for the height of its inhabitants. Friesland is mainly an agricultural province, the black and white Frisian cattle, black and white Stabyhoun and the black Frisian horse originated here
Friesland
–
Satellite image of Friesland
Friesland
Friesland
–
Map of Friesland (2012)
Friesland
–
View of the
Wadden Sea to the north of Friesland
8.
Municipal council (Netherlands)
–
In the Netherlands the municipal council is the elected assembly of the municipality. Its main role is laying down the guidelines for the policy of the council of mayor and aldermen and exercising control over its execution by the council of mayor and aldermen. The municipal councils range in size from nine to 45 seats, depending on the municipalitys population, in many municipalities all major political parties contest in the election in addition to local parties. All citizens and foreigners who live in the Netherlands for at least four years in a municipality have the right to vote, ministers and state secretaries in the national government are barred from standing in elections as well as mayors and civil servants employed by the municipality. After the elections the parties in the elect the aldermen. The municipal council is supported by its own civil service headed by the raadsgriffier, members of the council are not paid as full-time politicians, instead, most of them have day job. As in most legislatures, the members of municipal council work in political groups and policy area related committees. The mayor chairs the meetings of the council, some municipalities allow parties to have dual councillors, politicians who are not elected into the city council but are allowed to speak in committees
Municipal council (Netherlands)
–
Members of the city council of
Spijkenisse.
9.
Burgemeester
–
In the Netherlands and Belgium, the mayor is an appointed government position, whose main responsibility is chairing the executive and legislative councils of a municipality. The title is translated in English as burgomaster. In the Netherlands, mayors chair both the council of mayor and aldermen and the municipal council and they are members of the council of mayor and aldermen and have their own portfolios, always including safety and public order. They also have a role for the municipal government, both to its civilians and to other authorities on the local, regional and national level. A large majority of mayors are members of a political party and this can be the majority party in the municipal council, but there are many exceptions on this. However, the mayors are expected to exercise their office in a non-partisan way, the mayor is appointed by the national government for a renewable six-year term. In the past, mayors for important cities were chosen after negotiations between the national parties. This appointment procedure has been criticised because it was seen by some as undemocratic, especially the party D66 had a direct election of the mayor as one of the main objectives in its platform. In the early 2000s, proposals for change were discussed in the national parliament, however, opponents of the status quo were divided between two alternatives, direct election of the mayor by the people or appointment by the municipal council. A constitutional change to direct election gained a majority in both chambers but failed to pass the vote in the Senate in March 2005. In the meantime, although the law remained the same, the practice changed, nowadays, when a vacancy occurs, a special committee of the municipal council interviews candidates, which are pre-selected by the provincial governor. After advice by the committee, the council express its preferences to the Minister of the Interior, who almost always follows this recommendation
Burgemeester
–
Session of the council of the community
Oude IJsselstreek, eastern Netherlands: mayor
Steven de Vreeze (right) as chairman of the council.
10.
Christian Democratic Appeal
–
The Christian Democratic Appeal is a Christian-democratic political party in the Netherlands. Sybrand van Haersma Buma has been the party leader since 18 May 2012, the party suffered severe losses in the 2010 general election, losing half of its seats and falling to fourth place in the House of Representatives. Subsequently, the CDA again lost a number of seats in the 2012 general election. Since 1880 the sizeable Catholic and Protestant parties had worked together in the so-called Coalitie and they shared a common interest in public funding of religious schools. In 1888 they formed the first Christian-democratic government, led by the Anti-Revolutionary Æneas Baron Mackay, the cooperation was not without problems and in 1894 the more anti-papist and aristocratic conservatives left the Protestant Anti Revolutionary Party, to found the Christian Historical Union. The main issues dividing Protestants and Catholics was the position of the Dutch Representation at the Holy See, the General League evolved into the Roman Catholic State Party by 1926, and the Catholic Peoples Party in 1945. From 1918 to 1967, the three Christian Democratic parties had a majority in both houses of the States General, and at least two of them were included in every cabinet, the KVP and its antecedents had been in government without interruption since 1918. In the sixties, the Dutch society became more secularized and the pillars faded, in 1963 general election the three parties held 51% of the vote, whilst in 1972 general election they held only 32%. This decline forced the three parties to work closer together, in 1967 the Group of Eighteen was formed, it was a think-tank of six prominent politicians per party that planned the future cooperation of the three parties. In 1968 the three leaders of the parties (Norbert Schmelzer, Barend Biesheuvel and Jur Mellema made a public appearance. This caused progressive forces within the three parties, especially the ARP and KVP, to regret their political affiliation, in 1968 they founded the Political Party of Radicals, a left-wing party that sought cooperation with the Labour Party. Locally and provincially however the three parties had long cooperated well, in areas they formed one Christian-democratic parliamentary party. In the 1971 general election, the three presented a common political program, which lay the foundation for the first Biesheuvel cabinet. After the disastrous elections of 1972 the cooperation was given new momentum, in 1973 this federation was officially formed, with Steenkamp as chairperson. The cooperation was frustrated by the formation of the Den Uyl cabinet, established by the leader of the social-democratic PvdA, Den Uyl refused to allow members of the CHU in the cabinet that he would lead. This led to a situation where the CHU, ARP and KVP sat as a faction in both houses of parliament, but only the KVP and ARP supplied ministers and junior ministers. The cabinet Den Uyl was riddled with political and personal conflicts, another issue that split the three parties was the place that the Bible would take in the new party. In 1976, the three announced that they would field a single list at the 1977 general election under the name Christian Democratic Appeal
Christian Democratic Appeal
–
Piet Steenkamp, co-founder and honorary chair
Christian Democratic Appeal
–
Kingdom of the Netherlands
Christian Democratic Appeal
–
Piet Bukman, party chair from 1980 until 1986
Christian Democratic Appeal
–
Dries van Agt, party leader from 1976 until 1982
11.
Daylight saving time
–
Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
Daylight saving time
–
Ancient
water clock that lets hour lengths vary with season.
Daylight saving time
–
G. V. Hudson invented modern DST, proposing it first in 1895.
Daylight saving time
–
Retailers generally favor DST.
United Cigar Stores hailed a 1918 DST bill.
Daylight saving time
–
William Willett independently proposed DST in 1907 and advocated it tirelessly.
12.
Central European Summer Time
–
It corresponds to UTC + two hours. Other names which have been applied to Central European Summer Time are Middle European Summer Time, Central European Daylight Saving Time, and Bravo Time. Since 1996 European Summer Time has been observed between 1,00 UTC on the last Sunday of March and 1,00 on the last Sunday of October, the following countries and territories use Central European Summer Time. In addition, Libya used CEST during the years 1951–1959, 1982–1989, 1996–1997, European Summer Time Other countries and territories in UTC+2 time zone Other names of UTC+2 time zone
Central European Summer Time
–
light blue
13.
Municipality
–
It is to be distinguished from the county, which may encompass rural territory and/or numerous small communities such as towns, villages and hamlets. The term municipality may also mean the governing or ruling body of a given municipality, a municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district. The term is derived from French municipalité and Latin municipalis, a municipality can be any political jurisdiction from a sovereign state, such as the Principality of Monaco, or a small village, such as West Hampton Dunes, New York. The power of municipalities range from virtual autonomy to complete subordination to the state, municipalities may have the right to tax individuals and corporations with income tax, property tax, and corporate income tax, but may also receive substantial funding from the state. Similar terms include Spanish ayuntamiento, also called municipalidad, Polish gmina, Dutch/Flemish Gemeente, in Australia, the term local government area is used in place of the generic municipality. Here, the LGA Structure covers only incorporated areas of Australia, incorporated areas are legally designated parts of states and territories over which incorporated local governing bodies have responsibility. In Canada, municipalities are local governments established through provincial and territorial legislation, the Province of Ontario has different tiers of municipalities, including lower, upper, and single tiers. Types of upper tier municipalities in Ontario include counties and regional municipalities, nova Scotia also has regional municipalities, which include cities, counties, districts, or towns as municipal units. In India, a Nagar Palika or Municipality is a local body that administers a city of population 100,000 or more. Under the Panchayati Raj system, it directly with the state government. Generally, smaller cities and bigger towns have a Nagar Palika. Nagar Palikas are also a form of local self-government entrusted with duties and responsibilities. Such a corporation in Great Britain consists of a head as a mayor or provost, since local government reorganisation, the unit in England, Northern Ireland and Wales is known as a district, and in Scotland as a council area. A district may be awarded borough or city status, or can retain its district title, in Jersey, a municipality refers to the honorary officials elected to run each of the 12 parishes into which it is subdivided. This is the highest level of government in this jurisdiction. In the United States, municipality is usually understood as a city, town, village, or other local government unit, in the Peoples Republic of China, a direct-controlled municipality is a city with equal status to a province, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing. In Taiwan, a municipality is a city with equal status to a province, Kaohsiung, New Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Taipei. In Portuguese language usage, there are two words to distinguish the territory and the administrative organ, when referring to the territory, the word concelho is used, when referring to the organ of State, the word município is used
Municipality
–
The
Ponce City Hall, in the city of
Ponce, is the seat of the government for both the city and the surrounding
barrios making up the municipality.
14.
Sint Annaparochie
–
Sint Annaparochie is the principal and largest settlement of the municipality of Het Bildt in Friesland, the Netherlands. It lies approximately 15 km northwest of Leeuwarden and has approximately 4000 inhabitants, the village is named after Saint Anne, the mother of Mary. St. Annaparochie was founded in the 16th century, though it is located in the province of Friesland, the principal language spoken in the town is Bildts or Dutch, not West Frisian. Rembrandt was married in the church in St. Annaparochie in 1634. There was a station on the North Friesland Railway which opened in 1902 and it reopened to passengers in May 1940 and closed to passengers again in October 1942. Its final closure took place in May 1966
Sint Annaparochie
–
Sint Annaparochie
15.
South Holland
–
South Holland is a province in the midwestern Netherlands. It has a population of just over 3.6 million, situated on the North Sea in the west of the Netherlands, South Holland covers an area of 3,403 km2, of which 585 km2 is water. It borders North Holland to the north, Utrecht and Gelderland to the east, the provincial capital is The Hague, while its largest city is Rotterdam. Archaeological discoveries in Hardinxveld-Giessendam indicate that the area of South Holland has been inhabited since at least ca.7,500 years before present, agriculture and permanent settlements probably originated around 2,000 years later, based on excavations near Vlaardingen. In the classical antiquity, South Holland was part of the Roman Province of Germania Inferior, the Romans built fortresses along the border, such as Praetorium Agrippinae near modern-day Valkenburg, Matilo near modern-day Leiden, and Albaniana near modern-day Alphen aan den Rijn. A city was founded near modern-day Voorburg, Forum Hadriani and it was built according to the grid plan, and facilitated a square, a court, a bathhouse and several temples. After the departure of the Romans, the area belonged to the Frisian Kingdom, in 690, the Anglo-Saxon monk Willibrord arrived near Katwijk and was granted permission to spread Roman Catholicism by the Frankish king Pepin II. He accordingly founded a church in Oegstgeest, after which the area was gradually Christianised. The area was appointed to East Francia in the Treaty of Verdun in 843, after which the king granted lands to Gerolf and this was the birth of the County of Holland. Gerolf was later succeeded by Dirk I, who continued to rule Holland under the Frankish king, in 1248, count William II ordered the construction of the Ridderzaal, which was later finished by his son and successor Floris V. The first city in South Holland to receive city rights was Dordrecht, the city retained a dominant position in the area until it was struck by a series of floods in the late 14th century. The same century saw a series of civil wars, the Hook and Cod wars. Both his daughter Jaqueline and his brother John, the supported by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. The conflict ended in 1490, with John victorious, overall, the area of South Holland remained largely agrarian throughout the late Middle Ages. This changed around 1500, when Holland became Europes most urbanised area, during the Eighty Years War, the area of South Holland was the scene of the Capture of Brielle, the Siege of Leiden and the assassination of William the Silent. The United Netherlands declared their independence in 1581, and Holland quickly emerged as the dominant province, with important trading cities such as Leiden, Delft, Gouda. In 1575, the Netherlands first university was founded in Leiden by William the Silent, the Hague, which had originated around the castle of the counts of Holland, became its new political centre. Both the States of Holland and the States General seated in the Binnenhof, the Dutch Golden Age blossomed in the 17th century
South Holland
–
The liberation of
Leiden in 1574
South Holland
South Holland
–
The
Binnenhof by the
Hofvijver, 1625
South Holland
–
The centre of
Rotterdam in ruins after the
Rotterdam Blitz in 1940
16.
Dutch (language)
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It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after English and German. Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English and is said to be roughly in between them, Dutch vocabulary is mostly Germanic and incorporates more Romance loans than German but far fewer than English. In both Belgium and the Netherlands, the official name for Dutch is Nederlands, and its dialects have their own names, e. g. Hollands, West-Vlaams. The use of the word Vlaams to describe Standard Dutch for the variations prevalent in Flanders and used there, however, is common in the Netherlands, the Dutch language has been known under a variety of names. It derived from the Old Germanic word theudisk, one of the first names used for the non-Romance languages of Western Europe. It literarily means the language of the people, that is. The term was used as opposed to Latin, the language of writing. In the first text in which it is found, dating from 784, later, theudisca appeared also in the Oaths of Strasbourg to refer to the Germanic portion of the oath. This led inevitably to confusion since similar terms referred to different languages, owing to Dutch commercial and colonial rivalry in the 16th and 17th centuries, the English term came to refer exclusively to the Dutch. A notable exception is Pennsylvania Dutch, which is a West Central German variety called Deitsch by its speakers, Jersey Dutch, on the other hand, as spoken until the 1950s in New Jersey, is a Dutch-based creole. In Dutch itself, Diets went out of common use - although Platdiets is still used for the transitional Limburgish-Ripuarian Low Dietsch dialects in northeast Belgium, Nederlands, the official Dutch word for Dutch, did not become firmly established until the 19th century. This designation had been in use as far back as the end of the 15th century, one of them was it reflected a distinction with Hoogduits, High Dutch, meaning the language spoken in Germany. The Hoog was later dropped, and thus, Duits narrowed down in meaning to refer to the German language. g, in English, too, Netherlandic is regarded as a more accurate term for the Dutch language, but is hardly ever used. Old Dutch branched off more or less around the same time Old English, Old High German, Old Frisian and Old Saxon did. During that period, it forced Old Frisian back from the western coast to the north of the Low Countries, on the other hand, Dutch has been replaced in adjacent lands in nowadays France and Germany. The division in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch is mostly conventional, one of the few moments linguists can detect somewhat of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. This is assumed to have taken place in approximately the mid-first millennium BCE in the pre-Roman Northern European Iron Age, the Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups, East, West, and North Germanic. They remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period, Dutch is part of the West Germanic group, which also includes English, Scots, Frisian, Low German and High German
Dutch (language)
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The Utrecht baptismal vow Forsachistu diobolae...
Dutch (language)
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Dutch-speaking world (included are areas of daughter-language Afrikaans)
Dutch (language)
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Second edition of this column decorated with a title of
Charles V 's portrait, with archaic Dutch inscriptions
Dutch (language)
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Dutch language street sign in the Netherlands
17.
West Frisian language
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West Frisian, or simply Frisian is a West Germanic language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands, mostly by those of Frisian ancestry. It is the most widely spoken of the three Frisian languages, the name West Frisian is only used outside the Netherlands, to distinguish this language from the closely related Frisian languages of Saterland Frisian and North Frisian spoken in Germany. Most speakers of West Frisian live in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands, Friesland has 643,000 inhabitants, of whom 94% can understand spoken Frisian, 74% can speak Frisian, 75% can read Frisian, and 27% can write it. For over half of the inhabitants of the province of Friesland, 55%, also, many Frisians have left their province in the last sixty years for more prosperous parts of the Netherlands. In addition, there is a Frisian diaspora abroad, with Friesland having sent, in relative terms, the largest concentrations of Frisian speakers outside the Netherlands are located in Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Apart from the use of Frisian as a first language, it is spoken as a second language by about 120,000 people in the province of Friesland. One part of Friesland, Stellingwerf in the south-east, does not speak Frisian, the least-used dialect of West Frisian is Skiermûntseagersk, the island dialect of Schiermonnikoog, which is actually on the verge of extinction, because it is spoken by no more than 50–100 people. The Amelansk dialect is spoken on the island Ameland and is the only Frisian variety that does not devoice final obstruants, Hindeloopen Frisian, the archaic Frisian dialect of the peninsular harbour town of Hindeloopen on the west coast, is still spoken by some 300 people at the most. Skylgersk and Aastersk are the dialects of the western and eastern parts of the island of Terschelling and have about 800 and 400 speakers respectively and they are separated from each other by the Dutch dialect of Midslands, which is spoken in the central part of Terschelling. Because of their insular nature these four less-used dialects are also those that have deviated the most from mainstream Frisian, in fact, three of the four widely used mainland dialects are so much alike that a non-Frisian could probably not make out any differences. The Noardhoeksk dialect is spoken in the eastern corner of the province. By far the two most widely spoken West Frisian dialects are Clay Frisian and Wood Frisian, both these names are derived from the Frisian landscape. In the western and north-western parts of the province, the region where Clay Frisian is spoken, the dialect spoken in the eastern area is thus called Wood Frisian. Although Klaaifrysk and Wâldfrysk are mutually very easily intelligible, there are, at least to native Frisian speakers and these include the pronunciation of the words my, dy, hy, sy, wy and by, and the diphthongs ei and aai. In the early Middle Ages the Frisian lands stretched from the area around Bruges, in what is now Belgium, to the river Weser, at that time, the Frisian language was spoken along the entire southern North Sea coast. Old Frisian bore a similarity to Old English. This similarity was reinforced in the late Middle Ages by the Ingvaeonic sound shift, which affected Frisian and English, both English and Frisian are marked by the suppression of the Germanic nasal in a word like us, soft or goose, see Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law. Also, when followed by some vowels the Germanic k developed into a ch sound, for example, the Frisian for cheese and church is tsiis and tsjerke, whereas in Dutch it is kaas and kerk
West Frisian language
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Doutzen Kroes speaks West Frisian
West Frisian language
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West Frisian
West Frisian language
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Frisian-Dutch signs in
Hindeloopen
18.
Middelsee
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The Middelzee, also called Bordine, was the estuary mouth of the River Boorn now in the Dutch province of Friesland. It ran from as far south as Sneek northward to the Wadden Sea, other historical names for the Middelzee include Bordaa, Borndiep, Boerdiep, and Bordena. Gradually the Middelzee silted up, forming the nije lannen, one village is called Nijlân, literally meaning new land, and also there are several villages where the lands formerly of the Middelzee are still called it Nijlân. It can still be recognized as new land there are only a small number of villages lying in the area of the former Middelzee. The fertile sea clay bottom is used as meadow land. The border between Eastergoa and Westergoa in the former Middlezee is now drained by the River Zwette, that runs from Sneek to Leeuwarden, by the fifteenth century the Middelzee was reduced to a funnel shape along Frisias north coast and further silting of the remaining part rendered it unusable. From the early sixteenth century the polder of Het Bildt was formed in that funnel, the name Middelzee is still used as a name for an administrative coalition between the so-called Middelzee municipalities of Het Bildt, Ferwerderadeel, Leeuwarderadeel, and Menaldumadeel. This text is based on an article on the West Frisian Wikipedia, fy, Middelsee
Middelsee
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1834 map of the former Middelzee
19.
Franeker
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Franeker is one of the eleven historical cities of Friesland and capital of the municipality of Franekeradeel. It is located about 20 km west of Leeuwarden on the Van Harinxma Canal, as of 1 January 2006, it had 12,996 inhabitants. The Eisinga Planetarium from around the year 1800 is located in the city, Franeker was founded around 800 as a Carolingian stronghold. The name probably derives from Froon-acker, meaning country of the king, beginning around the 11th century, Franeker developed into the administrative center Westergoa. Franeker received city rights in 1374, in the 15th century, Albert, Duke of Saxony established himself in Franeker. The city appeared for a time to be growing into the city of Friesland. During the period of the Dutch Revolt, the town sided early on with William I, from 1585 to 1811, the city housed the University of Franeker, which was the second Protestant university in the Netherlands. It was closed shortly after the incorporation of the Kingdom of Holland into the French Empire, a successor institution, the Rijksatheneum, was founded in 1815, but in 1847 it, too, closed. The Krystkongres, usually held in Franeker, is the convention for Frisian students living in Dutch student towns. Franeker is located at 53°12′N 5°32′E in the municipality of Franekeradeel in the west of the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands and it is east of the city of Harlingen and about 20 km west of the provincial capital Leeuwarden. It is situated on the Van Harinxma Canal, as of 1 January 2006, the city of Franeker had a population of 12,996. The Eisinga Planetarium and the Museum Martena are museums located in the city, the Planetarium is an orrery built by a local wool carder to explain a conjunction of the planets and to help mitigate local fears of what would happen during the planets alignment. Built in Eisingas own living room, it is one of the oldest operating orreries in the world, the Museum Martena, opened in 2006, is housed in a manor house built in 1498 and is devoted to the history of the city and the region. The windmill Arkens is a hollow post mill which has been restored and it originally stood in Arkens and was moved in 1972. It is the windmill in the Netherlands equipped with Vlinderwieken. Since 1852 Franeker is the home of the PC. the most important tournament in Frisian handball, Franeker is a regular host of the Frisian draughts competitions. Being one of the Frisian cities, Franeker is also on the route of the 200 kilometres Elfstedentocht, in August 2014, Jeffrey Peereboom, a student from Franeker, introduced an idea of the speed limits for bicycles in order to make biking in the city safer. Franeker railway station is a station on the NS line between Leeuwarden and Harlingen and it also had a station on the North Friesland Railway which was the terminus of a branch from Tzummarum
Franeker
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Franeker
Franeker
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An illustration representing the map of Franekar, from c. 1710-1735, in the Atlas Schoemaker, currently held at the
Koninklijke Bibliotheek
Franeker
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Eise Eisinga Planetarium
Franeker
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Frisian handball in Franeker
20.
Eastergoa
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Eastergoa was one of the seven areas and one of the three Gaue within what is today the province of Friesland in the Netherlands. On its west side Eastergoa was bordered by the Middelsee with Westergoa on the side of the water. To the south the Alde Leppedyk and the Boarn were the border with Bornegoa, to the east it was bordered by the Lauwers, the Lauwerzee and the Westerkwartier of the Ommelanden. The whole of this belonged to Wininge and Achtkarspelen, which was at that point still a part of Eastergoa. Around 1200 Wininge comprised Dantumadeel, Dongeradeel and Ferwerderadeel in the north, around 1250 it was split into two parts called the Noardlike njoggen and the Sudlike njoggen. Around 1500 Eastergoa was further divided into two cities and eleven grietenijen
Eastergoa
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Eastergoa in the
Frankish realm (in the Middle Ages
21.
Leeuwarden
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Leeuwarden is a city and municipality with a population of 108,249 in Friesland in the Netherlands. It is the capital and seat of the States of Friesland. The oldest remains of houses in the city back to the 2nd century AD. Leeuwarden has been inhabited since the 10th century. It was granted city privileges in 1435, the city was liberated from German occupation in World War II by The Royal Canadian Dragoons in 1945. It is the hub of the province of Friesland, situated in a green and water-rich environment, with lakes, villages. Leeuwarden is a royal residence and has a historic centre, many listed buildings. Leeuwarden has been awarded the title European Capital of Culture 2018, one important cultural and historical event is the Elfstedentocht, an ice skating-tour of eleven cities in Friesland, starting and finishing in Leeuwarden. Besides the city of Leeuwarden, population centres in the municipality with a population of 1,000 or more are Grou, Goutum, Wergea, Jirnsum, Reduzum, and Wirdum. The municipality is governed by the mayor Ferd Crone and a coalition of the Labour Party, Christian Democratic Appeal, and PAL-GroenLinks. The name Leeuwarden first came into use for Nijehove, the most important of the three villages that merged into one, namely Oldehove and Hoek in the early 9th century. There is much uncertainty about the origin of the citys name, historian and archivist Wopke Eekhoff summed up a total of over 200 different spelling variants, of which Leeuwarden, Liwwadden, and Ljouwert are still in use. The second syllable is easily explained, Warden, Frisian/Dutch for an artificial dwelling hill, is a designation of terps, the first part of the name, leeuw, means lion in modern standard Dutch. This interpretation corresponds with the coat of arms adopted by the city, however, modern standard Dutch was not used in this region in the Middle Ages, when the city was called Lintarwrde. Some scholars argue that the name of the city is derived from leeu-, the last one suits the watery province of Friesland. The name is similar to that of the French commune Lewarde, located in the Nord Department, the oldest remains of houses date back to the 2nd century AD in the Roman era and were discovered during an excavation near the Oldehove. The area has been inhabited since the 10th century, and was mentioned as a city in German sources in 1285. Situated along the Middelzee, it was a trade centre until the waterway silted up in the 15th century
Leeuwarden
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Former
weigh house in Leeuwarden
Leeuwarden
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Historical map of Leeuwarden 1664
Leeuwarden
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Leeuwarden (municipality) in 1866
Leeuwarden
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Citizens of Leeuwarden welcoming units of the
Canadian Army, 16 April 1945
22.
Bolsward
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Bolsward is a city in Súdwest-Fryslân in the province of Friesland, the Netherlands. Bolsward has a population of just under 10,000 and it is located 10 km W. N. W. of Sneek. The town is founded on three artificial dwelling mounds, the first of which was some time before Christ. During the Middle Ages, Bolsward was a center and port city connected to the North Sea via the Middle Sea. This connection was lost when the Middle Sea was reclaimed to form arable land, after this a canal was dug to the Zuiderzee. The town is first mentioned in AD725, as a trading city, Bolsward was granted city rights by Philip the Good in 1455. Bolsward was made a member of the Hanseatic league in 1422, before being merged into the municipality of Súdwest-Fryslân, the town of Bolsward was an independent municipality. A local festival of four days in June and this is an old traditional festival to celebrate that the farmers have harvested the hay from the fields. The name of the festival, Heamiel, is frisian for Hay meal, bolletongersdei is frisian for bulls Thursday. Bolletongersdei is held on the first Thursday of October, a music festival of 4 evenings with performances, held in August. Bolsward is one of the eleven Frisian cities in which the ice skating Elfstedentocht, because the marathon depends on the thickness of the ice, it is not held on a regular schedule and can be somewhat rare. Bolsward is also the host city for the yearly Cycling Elfstedentocht, protestant church of Bolsward Official website
Bolsward
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City Hall
23.
Zuiderzee
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Its name means southern sea in Dutch, indicating that the name originates in Friesland, to the north of the Zuiderzee. In the 20th century the majority of the Zuiderzee was closed off from the North Sea by the construction of the Afsluitdijk and this land eventually became the province of Flevoland, with a population of nearly 400,000. In classical times there was already a body of water in this location and it was much smaller than its later forms and its connection to the main sea was much narrower, it may have been a complex of lakes and marshes and channels, rather than one lake. Over time these lakes gradually eroded their soft peat shores and spread, some part of this area of water was later called the Vlie, it probably flowed into the sea through what is now the Vliestroom channel between the islands of Vlieland and Terschelling. The Marsdiep was once a river which may have been a distributary of the Vlie, during the early Middle Ages this began to change as rising sea levels and storms started to eat away at the coastal areas which consisted mainly of peatlands. The disaster marked the rise of Amsterdam on the end of the bay. The even more massive St. Lucias flood occurred 14 December 1287, the name Zuiderzee came into general usage around this period. For example, on 18 November 1421, a seawall at the Zuiderzee dike broke and this was the Second St. Elizabeths flood. The Netherlands was part of the First French Empire between 1810 and 1813, a département was formed in 1811 and named as Zuyderzée after the Zuiderzee, of which the territory roughly corresponded to the present provinces of North Holland and Utrecht. In 1928, the 6-meter and 8-meter sailing events for the Amsterdam Summer Olympics were held on the Zuiderzee. These towns traded at first with ports on the Baltic Sea, in England, and in the Hanseatic League, when that lucrative trade diminished, most of the towns fell back on fishing and some industry until the 20th century when tourism became the major source of income. Contained within the Zuiderzee were five islands, the remains of what were once larger islands, peninsulas connected to the mainland, or in the case of Pampus. These were Wieringen, Urk, Schokland, Pampus, and Marken, the inhabitants of these islands also subsisted mainly on fishing and related industries and still do in the case of Urk and Wieringen. All of these islands, except for Pampus, are now part of the mainland or connected to it, the construction in the early 20th century of a large enclosing dam tamed the Zuiderzee. The creation of this dam was a response to the flood of January 1916, plans for closing the Zuiderzee had been made over thirty years earlier but had not yet passed in parliament. With the completion of the Afsluitdijk in 1932, the Zuiderzee became the IJsselmeer and these areas, known as polders, were respectively the Wieringermeer, the Noordoostpolder, and Flevoland. This enormous project under the direction of Cornelis Lely, called the Zuiderzee Works, ran from 1919 to 1986, Zuiderzee Museum, dedicated to the history and culture of the former Zuiderzee Zuiderzee Cycle Route, long-distance cycle route around the former Zuiderzee Pathe newsreel of flooding,1916
Zuiderzee
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Historical map of the Netherlands (1658) with De Zuyder Zee'
Zuiderzee
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Approximate landscape in North Holland during the 1st century AD (left) and the 10th century AD (right)
Zuiderzee
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Vliestroom indicated by arrow
Zuiderzee
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Landsat photo
24.
IJsselmeer
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Ijsselmeer, or IJsselmeer is a shallow artificial lake of 1100 km² in the central Netherlands bordering the provinces of Flevoland, North Holland and Friesland, with an average depth of 5 to 6 m. The IJsselmeer is the largest lake in Western Europe, the IJsselmeer is a freshwater lake fed through the Ketelmeer by the river IJssel, which gives it its name. It is mainly fed by water from the Rhine since the IJssel is a branch of it, the first two letters of the name are capitalized because IJ is a digraph in Dutch, possibly a ligature, so it is treated as a single letter for most purposes. The IJsselmeer was created in 1932 when a shallow inland bay, the Zuiderzee, was closed by a 32 km dam. This was part of a hydraulic engineering project known as the Zuiderzee Works. This former southern part of the IJsselmeer is now the hydrologically separate Markermeer, the IJsselmeer functions as a major fresh water reserve, serving as a source for agriculture and drinking water. It also offers a number of opportunities for recreational activities, the province of Flevoland was established in 1986 and consists of three polders reclaimed from the IJsselmeer. The narrow lake east of IJsselmeer is Lake Ketelmeer, the lake receives water from rivers that carry industrial pollutants from factories upstream. Those polluted sediments have settled to the bottom in a layer of contaminated sludge. To restore a normal environment, this material needs to be removed from the lakebed. In 2010 an artificial island called the IJsseloog was installed in Lake Ketelmeer and it is a repository for contaminated material dredged from the bottom of the lake. Once the repository is full, it will be capped and turned into a nature reserve, media related to IJsselmeer at Wikimedia Commons
IJsselmeer
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Landsat photo
IJsselmeer
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Traditional boat on the IJsselmeer
IJsselmeer
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Sunset over the IJsselmeer
.svg)
pronunciation (help·info)) is a municipality in the province of Friesland in the northern Netherlands; its capital is Sint Annaparochie. The population was 10,657 in 2017. Het Bildt has 15.4 km (9.6 mi) of coastline. Its soil is very fertile and agriculture is a major part of its economy; crops grown include onions, potatoes, and a variety of fruits (mainly apples).
Media related to het Bildt at Wikimedia Commons
Het Bildt
