The Kingdom of the Netherlands is situated in Europe. It consists of the Netherlands Antilles, the Netherlands, and Aruba in the Caribbean. The Netherlands is called Nederland in Dutch. It is located in the west of Europe and is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. Netherlands is surrounded by the North Sea, Germany, and Belgium on its north and west, east, and south respectively.

Another name which is commonly used for the Netherlands is Holland. But its is not known by most people that this usage is wrong because of the fact that only two of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands have names including “Holland”, and they are South and North Holland. This usage has become so common and wide spread that a lot of Dutch people use it as a synecdoche, which is a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to mean the whole thing.

The Netherlands has low lying terrain with a high level of population. It is known all over the world for its cheese, windmills, wooden shoes called clogs, tulips, gouda pottery, bicycles, delftware, surge barriers, and dikes. Other well known aspects are its civil virtues and traditional values which include social tolerance. But the most important feature of the Netherlands is that it is a society which is advanced, modern, and open. Recent liberal policies concerning abortion, prostitution, recreational drugs, homosexuality, and euthanasia has made it more known in recent times. Around eighty eight percent of the people in the Netherlands have an internet connection, which makes it a highly cabled country and rank second among all the other countries of the world with respect to the internet connection rate.

The role of the Government is very low in the economy, which is open and very prosperous. The major industrial activities are food processing, petroleum refining, chemicals, and electrical machinery.