Netherlands

B

Political Divisions

The Netherlands is made up of 12 provinces—Drenthe, Flevoland, Friesland, Gelderland, Groningen, Limburg, North Brabant, North Holland, Overijssel, Utrecht, Zeeland, and South Holland.

C

Religion

Roman Catholics constitute about 30 per cent and Protestants 20 per cent of the Dutch population. Muslims constitute about 4 per cent and the country also has a small Jewish community. About 39 per cent of the population has no religious affiliation. The Roman Catholic population is concentrated in the southern part of the country. There are several Protestant denominations, the largest being the Dutch Reformed Church. The Netherlands has no official religion, but the Reformed Church has had a close association with the state since the founding of the Dutch Republic in the mid-17th century. All the country’s monarchs have been members of the Reformed Church.

D

Language

Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands, while Western Frisian holds co-official status in Friesland Province, where it is the first language of the majority of the population. Dutch, a Germanic language, is spoken by the majority of the population. Frisian is also from the Germanic family, and is a mother tongue for around 700,000 citizens in Friesland and other parts of the Netherlands; most speakers are bilingual in Dutch. Fourteen other languages, nearly all Germanic, are native to the country, including Flemish, Gronings, and Vlax Romani (an Indo-Iranian language).

E

Education

Since the time of the Reformation in the 16th century, the Netherlands has enjoyed a high level of basic education and comparatively high literacy rates. In the 19th century efforts were made to systematize education and to secure adequate financing for schools. As the state became more deeply involved in education, a dispute arose concerning the fate of non-public, mainly Church-related, schools. The so-called school struggle became a major political issue and was not fully settled until 1917, when a constitutional amendment was passed guaranteeing equal state support for both public and non-public schools. Today, about one third of elementary and secondary schools are public, and about two thirds are non-public, mainly Roman Catholic or Protestant. School attendance is compulsory for children from 5 until 16 years of age. Pupils attend a primary school for six years and then enter one of several types of secondary schools, which offer either academic or vocational training. In 2000 1.28 million pupils attended primary, or basic, schools, and about 1.40 million students were enrolled in secondary, vocational, and teacher-training schools. In 2002–2003, 5.2 per cent of gross national product (GNP) was devoted to education.

The number of students enrolled in institutions of higher education increased dramatically in the 1960s, and by 2001–2002 some 516,769 students attended colleges and universities. The Netherlands has 15 university and university-level institutions, including the University of Amsterdam (founded 1632) and the state universities of Groningen (1614), Leiden (1575), and Utrecht (1636). There are also several technical universities and schools of fine arts.

F

Culture

The Dutch writer, scholar, and humanist Desiderius Erasmus was a major influence in northern Europe during the 16th century, and the country’s cultural life as a whole achieved an international reputation in the 17th century, which is often called the Dutch Golden Age. Among the influential Dutch figures of that time were the jurist Hugo Grotius, the scientists Christiaan Huygens and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, the cartographers Willem Janszoon Blaeu and Jodocus Hondius, the writers Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft and Joost van den Vondel, the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and numerous theologians. In addition, foreigners lived in Holland to enjoy its tolerant atmosphere, the most famous being the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes and the English philosopher John Locke. Well-known figures of the Golden Age include the great 17th-century Dutch artists, such as Rembrandt, Jan Vermeer, Frans Hals, and Jan Steen. The Dutch artistic tradition continued to be vigorous in more recent centuries—producing such noted and influential painters as Vincent van Gogh, Piet Mondrian, and Karel Appel—and lives on today, particularly in Amsterdam, where artists from many countries work. See Baroque Art and Architecture; Dutch Literature; Frisian Literature; Renaissance Art and Architecture.

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam has an international reputation, and there is also a major symphony orchestra in Rotterdam. The country’s main libraries are those of the State University of Leiden, the University of Amsterdam, and the Royal Library in The Hague. In addition, the country has many public libraries. Of the country’s numerous museums the most famous are those displaying the work of Dutch painters. These include the Rijksmuseum (state museum), the Rembrandt-Huis Museum, the Vincent van Gogh National Museum, and the Stedelijk (municipal) Museum, all in Amsterdam; the Royal Picture Gallery (Mauritshuis), in The Hague; the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum, in Rotterdam; and the Kröller-Müller National Museum, in Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo.

The organization of cultural activity and social life in the Netherlands began to change significantly in the 1960s. Until then, most facets of Dutch life were organized systematically in what are called pillars, or groups. In education, politics, the media, medicine, the trade unions, and other segments of Dutch life, institutions were specifically Protestant, Roman Catholic, or public (non-denominational) and were represented on committees at all levels of government. As the country underwent change, socialist and liberal non-sectarian groups joined the denominational ones, and some institutions became independent of the pillar system. By the 1980s most people had become less firmly attached to a specific pillar.