1.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland 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
2.
North Holland
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North Holland is a province in the northwest of the Netherlands. It is situated on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht, in 2015, it had a population of 2,762,163 and a total area of 2,670 km2. From the 9th to the 16th century, the area was a part of the County of Holland. During this period West Friesland was incorporated, in the 17th and 18th century, the area was part of the province of Holland. At that time, the distinction between the Noorderkwartier and the Zuiderkwartier became common, in 1840, the province of Holland was split into the two provinces of North Holland and South Holland. In 1855, the Haarlemmermeer was drained and turned into land, the capital and seat of the provincial government is Haarlem, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands capital city, is the provinces largest city. The Kings Commissioner of North Holland is Johan Remkes, there are 51 municipalities and three water boards in the province. For most of its history, the province of North Holland was an integral part of Holland. From the 9th century to the 16th century, Holland was a county ruled by the counts of Holland, during this period an area known as West Friesland was conquered and integrated into Holland. For centuries afterwards Holland would be officially called Holland and West Friesland, the people of West Friesland had a strong sense of identity as a region within Holland. From the 16th century to 1795, Holland was the wealthiest and most important province in the United Provinces in the Dutch Republic, as the richest and most powerful province, Holland dominated the union. During this period a distinction was made between the North Quarter and the South Quarter, areas that roughly correspond to the two modern provinces. The province of North Holland as it is today has its origins in the period of French rule from 1795 to 1813 and this was a time of bewildering changes to the Dutch system of provinces. In 1795 the old order was swept away and the Batavian Republic was established, in the Constitution enacted on 23 April 1798, the old borders were radically changed. The republic was reorganised into eight departments with roughly equal populations, Holland was split up into five departments named Texel, Amstel, Delf, Schelde en Maas, and Rijn. The first three of these lay within the borders of the old Holland, the two were made up of parts of different provinces. In 1801 the old borders were restored when the department of Holland was created and this reorganisation had been short-lived, but it gave birth to the concept of breaking up Holland and making it a less powerful province. This time the two departments were called Amstelland and Maasland and this also did not last long
3.
Labour Party (Netherlands)
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The Labour Party is a social-democratic political party in the Netherlands. The party was founded in 1946 as a merger of the Social Democratic Workers Party, the Free-thinking Democratic League, Prime Ministers from the Labour Party have been Willem Drees, Joop den Uyl, and Wim Kok. Since 2012, the PvdA is the partner in the Second Rutte cabinet with the Peoples Party for Freedom. Since 2016, Lodewijk Asscher has been Leader of the Labour Party, the party won 9 seats in the House of Representatives in the 2017 general election. The Labour Party is a member of the European Party of European Socialists, in the European Parliament, where the Labour Party has 3 seats, it is part of the parliamentary group Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. They were joined by individuals from Catholic resistance group Christofoor and the Protestant parties Christian Historical Union, the founders of the PvdA wanted to create a broad party, breaking with the historic tradition of Pillarisation. This desire to come to a new system was called the Doorbraak. The party combined socialists with liberal democrats and progressive Christians, however, the party was unable to break Pillarisation. Instead the new party renewed the ties that SDAP had with other socialist organisations. In 1948 some conservative members, led by former VDB leader Pieter Oud, together with the Freedom Party, they formed the Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy, a conservative-liberal party. Between 1946 and 1958, the PvdA formed coalition governments with the Catholic Peoples Party, the KVP and the PvdA together had a large majority in parliament. Since 1948, these cabinets were led by PvdA Prime Minister Willem Drees, under his leadership the Netherlands recovered from the war, began to build its welfare state and Indonesia became independent. After the cabinet crisis of 1958, the PvdA was replaced by the VVD, the PvdA was in opposition until 1965. The electoral support of PvdA voters began to decline, in 1965 a conflict in the KVP-ARP-CHU-VVD cabinet made continuation of the government impossible. The three confessional, Christian-influenced parties turned towards the PvdA, together they formed the Cals cabinet. This cabinet was also lived and conflict ridden. The conflicts culminated in the fall of the Cals cabinet over economic policy, meanwhile, a younger generation was attempting to gain control of the PvdA. A group of young PvdA members, calling themselves the New Left, prominent New Left members were Jan Nagel, André van der Louw and Bram Peper
4.
Gooi
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Het Gooi is the area around Hilversum, in the centre of the Netherlands. It is a hilly area characterised by its green landscape, its historical charm, the wealth of its inhabitants. Het Gooi is known in the Netherlands as the home of the rich, the name Gooi is related to gouw, the Dutch word for gau, being an old name for a region. Het Gooi is conventionally referred to in Dutch as het Gooi or t Gooi and it is also sometimes referred to as Gooiland. In English, the area is referred to as Het Gooi or the Gooi area. Het Gooi is the part of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area. Gooi rhymes roughly with the English name Roy, the g is pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative, like the ch in loch. Het Gooi is the area around Hilversum in the corner of the province of North Holland. It is located east of Amsterdam and north of Utrecht, between Amersfoort and Amsterdam, the boundaries are not clearly demarcated. It is generally the area between a dry ditch called the Gooyergracht, dug in 1356 to demarcate the border with the province of Utrecht, Het Gooi refers traditionally to the part of this area that lies in the province of North Holland. Often the term is used to refer just to the higher, sandy, the towns in the area include, Hilversum Gooise Meren Huizen Laren Blaricum To the north of Het Gooi there is a body of water called Lake Gooi, a southern extension of the IJsselmeer. An area called the Vechtstreek lies to the west of Het Gooi, Eemland in the province of Utrecht lies to the east. The towns of Weesp and Eemnes are also thought to be in Het Gooi. Their inclusion would mean that the region extends in the west to the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal, however, historically and geographically these towns are not really part of Het Gooi. Weesp is part of the Vechtstreek and Eemnes part of Eemland, to the west and southwest there are two lake systems called the Loosdrecht Lakes and the Ankeveen Lakes. On 1 January 2002 the towns in the area of lake systems was organised into a municipality called Wijdemeren. This municipality includes Ankeveen, Breukeleveen, s-Graveland, Kortenhoef, Muyeveld, Nederhorst den Berg, some of this area is fenland. Since then this area has also considered to be part of Het Gooi
5.
Heath
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A heath is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and is characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler, heaths are widespread worldwide, but are fast disappearing and considered a rare habitat in Europe. They form extensive and highly diverse communities across Australia in humid and sub-humid areas where fire regimes with recurring burning are required for the maintenance of the heathlands, even more diverse though less widespread heath communities occur in Southern Africa. Extensive heath communities can also be found in the California chaparral, New Caledonia, central Chile, in addition to these extensive heath areas, the vegetation type is also found in scattered locations across all continents, except Antarctica. Heaths are dominated by low shrubs,20 centimetres to 2 metres tall, heath vegetation can be extremely plant-species rich, and heathlands of Australia are home to some 3,700 endemic or typical species in addition to numerous less restricted species. The fynbos heathlands of South Africa are second only to tropical rainforests in plant biodiversity with over 7,000 species, in marked contrast, the tiny pockets of heathland in Europe are extremely depauperate with a flora consisting primarily of heather, heath and gorse. The bird fauna of heathlands are usually species of the region. In the depauperate heathlands of Europe bird species tend to be characteristic of the community and include Montagus harrier. Australian heathlands are also home to the worlds only nectar-feeding terrestrial mammal, the bird fauna of the South African fynbos includes sunbirds, warblers and siskins. Heathlands are also an excellent habitat for insects including ants, moths, butterflies and these heaths were originally created or expanded by centuries of human clearance of the natural forest and woodland vegetation, by grazing and burning. Referring to heathland in England, Rackham says, “Heaths are clearly the product of human activities and need to be managed as heathland, in recent years the conservation value of even these man-made heaths has become much more appreciated, and consequently most heathlands are protected. However they are threatened by tree incursion because of the discontinuation of traditional management techniques such as grazing and burning that mediated the landscapes. Some are also threatened by urban sprawl, anthropogenic heathlands are maintained artificially by a combination of grazing and periodic burning, or mowing, if not so maintained, they are rapidly re-colonised by forest or woodland. The re-colonising tree species will depend on what is available as the seed source. Bolster heath Chalk heath Garrigue Maquis shrubland Matorral Scrubland The Countryside Agency information on types of open land Origin of the word heath
6.
Forest
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A forest is a large area dominated by trees. Hundreds of more precise definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as density, tree height, land use, legal standing. According to the widely used Food and Agriculture Organization definition, forests covered four billion hectares or approximately 30 percent of the land area in 2006. Forests are the dominant terrestrial ecosystem of Earth, and are distributed across the globe, Forests account for 75% of the gross primary productivity of the Earths biosphere, and contain 80% of the Earths plant biomass. Forests at different latitudes and elevations form distinctly different ecozones, boreal forests near the poles, tropical forests near the equator, higher elevation areas tend to support forests similar to those at higher latitudes, and amount of precipitation also affects forest composition. Human society and forests influence each other in both positive and negative ways, Forests provide ecosystem services to humans and serve as tourist attractions. Forests can also affect peoples health, human activities, including harvesting forest resources, can negatively affect forest ecosystems. Although forest is a term of common parlance, there is no universally recognised precise definition, there are three broad categories of forest definitions in use, administrative, land use, and land cover. Land use definitions are based upon the purpose that the land serves. For example, a forest may be defined as any land that is used primarily for production of timber, land cover definitions define forests based upon the type and density of vegetation growing on the land. Such definitions typically define a forest as an area growing trees above some threshold and these thresholds are typically the number of trees per area, the area of ground under the tree canopy or the section of land that is occupied by the cross-section of tree trunks. Under such land cover definitions, and area of land only be defined as forest if it is growing trees, areas that fail to meet the land cover definition may be still included under while immature trees are establishing if they are expected to meet the definition at maturity. Under land use definitions, there is variation on where the cutoff points are between a forest, woodland, and savanna. Under some definitions, forests require high levels of tree canopy cover, from 60% to 100%, excluding savannas. Other definitions consider savannas to be a type of forest, the term was not endemic to Romance languages, and cognates in Romance languages, such as Italian foresta, Spanish and Portuguese floresta, etc. are all ultimately borrowings of the French word. The exact origin of Medieval Latin foresta is obscure, uses of the word forest in English to denote any uninhabited area of non-enclosure are now considered archaic. The word was introduced by the Norman rulers of England as a term denoting an uncultivated area legally set aside for hunting by feudal nobility. These hunting forests were not necessarily wooded much, if at all, however, as hunting forests did often include considerable areas of woodland, the word forest eventually came to mean wooded land more generally
7.
Meadow
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A meadow is a field habitat vegetated by grass and other non-woody plants. Meadows are of importance because they are open, sunny areas that attract and support flora. Meadows may be naturally occurring or artificially created from cleared shrub or woodland and they often host a multitude of wildlife, providing areas for courtship displays, nesting, food gathering and sometimes sheltering if the vegetation is high enough. Many meadows support an array of wildflowers, which makes them of utmost importance to insects like bees and other pollinating insects. In agriculture, a meadow is grassland which is not regularly grazed by domestic livestock, especially in the United Kingdom and Ireland, the term meadow is commonly used in its original sense to mean a hay meadow, signifying grassland mown annually in the summer for making hay. Agricultural meadows are typically lowland or upland fields upon which hay or pasture grasses grow from self-sown or hand-sown seed, traditional hay meadows were once common in rural Britain, but are now in decline. Ecologist Professor John Rodwell states that over the past century, England, fewer than 15.000 hectares of lowland meadows remain in the UK and most sites are relatively small and fragmented. 25% of the UKs meadows are found in Worcestershire, with Fosters Green Meadow managed by the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust being a major site. A similar concept to the hay meadow is the pasture, which differs from the meadow in that it is grazed through the summer, rather than being allowed to grow out, the term, grassland, is used to describe both hay meadows and grass pastures. The specific agricultural practices in relation to the meadow can take on various expressions, as mentioned, this could be hay production or providing food for grazing cattle and livestock but also to give room for orchards or honey production. A transitional state can be artificially-maintained through a system, in which cultivated soil. For example, some of todays meadows originated thousands of years ago, types of perpetual meadows may include, Alpine meadows occur at high elevations above the tree line and maintained by harsh climatic conditions. Coastal meadows maintained by salt sprays, desert meadows restricted by low precipitation or lack of nutrients and humus. Prairies maintained by periods of drought or subject to wildfires. Wet meadows saturated with water much of the year. Apart from the meadows, meadows are often conceived of as artificial or cultural habitats, since they have emerged from and continually require human intervention to persist. It can be argued however, that meadows are really semi-cultural habitats, the reason is, that in many places the natural, pristine populations of free roaming large grazers are either extinct or very limited due to human activities. This reduces or removes their natural influence on the surrounding ecology, mankind has influenced the ecology and the landscape for millennia in many parts of the world, so it can sometimes be difficult to discern what is natural and what is cultural
8.
Randstad
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The Randstad is a megalopolis in the central-western Netherlands consisting primarily of the four largest Dutch cities and their surrounding areas. Among other things, it contains the Port of Rotterdam, and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. With a population of 7,100,000 it is one of the largest metropolitan regions in Europe, comparable in size to Milan or the San Francisco Bay Area and its also one of the most important and densely populated economic areas in northwestern Europe. The Randstads main cities are Almere, Amersfoort, Amsterdam, Delft, Dordrecht, Gouda, Haarlem, Leiden, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Zaanstad, and Zoetermeer. Although the name Randstad is often translated into English as edge city or border city, a more accurate translation would be rim city. The Dutch name was coined in 1938 by KLM founder Albert Plesman who, while flying over the region, while technically more of a crescent, the ring shape formed by connecting the four major cities of the region led to the use of the name Ring City. Within the Netherlands, a divide between the Randstad and the rest of the country exists. Recently, Dutch planners have started to refer to the Randstad as Deltametropool, deltametropolis actually consists of two large metropolitan areas,1. The Noordvleugel, consisting of the Haarlem and IJmuiden conurbations in the west, Amsterdam at the centre and Almere, the conurbation of Utrecht can be considered to be part of this wing, but can also be excluded. The cultural centre of the Noordvleugel, however, is centered on Amsterdam. Amsterdam recently started to present itself as the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area, the expectation is that the use of the Noordvleugel and the Randstad will become less as a result. The Zuidvleugel, stretching some 60 kilometers from Dordrecht in the South East to Leiden in the North, the main conurbations are the Rotterdam and The Hague areas. The virtual centre of the Zuidvleugel lies in between two major cities, near Delft. The first steps toward this development were taken with the construction of a new fast light-rail connection between Rotterdam and The Hague, RandstadRail. A long-delayed extension of the western A4-motorway from the south of Delft to Rotterdam has also been constructed, creating a second connection between Rotterdam, via The Hague, to Amsterdam. A possible new area would be the Zuidoostflank, parallel to the A2 motorway and parallel to the A12 motorway, over the last few decades, a major topic in the Randstad is the conflict between the cities and the towns in between. Cities need more space to expand, yet the towns fear losing their identity, the Randstads borders have never been officially specified. Some consider only the four biggest cities of the Netherlands part of it, others would say that such as Alkmaar, Hoorn
9.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
10.
Amsterdam
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Amsterdam is the capital and most populous municipality of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands, although it is not the seat of the government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 851,373 within the city proper,1,351,587 in the urban area, the city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country. The metropolitan area comprises much of the part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe. Amsterdams name derives from Amstelredamme, indicative of the citys origin around a dam in the river Amstel, during that time, the city was the leading centre for finance and diamonds. In the 19th and 20th centuries the city expanded, and many new neighborhoods and suburbs were planned, the 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered a world city by the Globalization. The city is also the capital of the Netherlands. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters there, and seven of the worlds 500 largest companies, including Philips and ING, are based in the city. In 2012, Amsterdam was ranked the second best city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit and 12th globally on quality of living for environment, the city was ranked 3rd in innovation by Australian innovation agency 2thinknow in their Innovation Cities Index 2009. The Amsterdam seaport to this day remains the second in the country, famous Amsterdam residents include the diarist Anne Frank, artists Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh, and philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world, is located in the city center. After the floods of 1170 and 1173, locals near the river Amstel built a bridge over the river, the earliest recorded use of that name is in a document dated October 27,1275, which exempted inhabitants of the village from paying bridge tolls to Count Floris V. This allowed the inhabitants of the village of Aemstelredamme to travel freely through the County of Holland, paying no tolls at bridges, locks, the certificate describes the inhabitants as homines manentes apud Amestelledamme. By 1327, the name had developed into Aemsterdam, Amsterdam is much younger than Dutch cities such as Nijmegen, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. In October 2008, historical geographer Chris de Bont suggested that the land around Amsterdam was being reclaimed as early as the late 10th century. This does not necessarily mean there was already a settlement then, since reclamation of land may not have been for farming—it may have been for peat. Amsterdam was granted city rights in either 1300 or 1306, from the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely from trade with the Hanseatic League
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North Holland
listen)) is a city and municipality in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. Located in the heart of the Gooi, it is the largest urban centre in that area. It is surrounded by heathland, woods, meadows, lakes, and smaller towns. Hilversum is part of the Randstad, one of the largest conurbations in Europe.
Media related to Hilversum at Wikimedia Commons
Hilversum travel guide from Wikivoyage
Hilversum
