Oh wise Greg - please could you come to my aid once more?

Why - oh why - do we in UK call the Dutch 'Holland', whilst the rest of the world call them 'The Netherlands'? Is it correct? Aren't we just being insensitive? Are we just being lazy?

If you can beat Greg to it, feel free. Answers on a postc... erm.. this thread!
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"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear"
-Mark Twain

May I?

The Netherlands is the offical name of the country, whereas Holland is a region within the Netherlands, to the west I believe.

The reason why its come to be known as Holland is because back in the Early 1800's, Holland was the leading region within the Netherlands, so therefor Napolean Boneparte (of all people) renamed The Netherlands to Kingdom of Holland in order for his brother to be able to govern it more effectively. Even though it was only called this for about 5 years or so, the name has stuck.

Although the population of The Netherlands have lodged several complaints about the misuse of the title.

That's it in a nutshell. If some facts are incorrect, you may correct me .

I only know this cos I asked the same question a few years ago, and I have since had to explain it to several colleagues during this world cup
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I think during a world cup match I saw the scoreboard in the corner of the screen say 'HOL' and when the score flashed up at the bottom of the screen it said 'Netherlands'

Well Clarence Seedorf is happy with using Holland, that makes it OK in my book!
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"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear"
-Mark Twain

cavedweller2000 wrote:

May I? The Netherlands is the offical name of the country, whereas Holland is a region within the Netherlands, to the west I believe. The reason why its come to be known as Holland is because back in the Early 1800's, Holland was the leading region within the Netherlands, so therefor Napolean Boneparte (of all people) renamed The Netherlands to Kingdom of Holland in order for his brother to be able to govern it more effectively. Even though it was only called this for about 5 years or so, the name has stuck. Although the population of The Netherlands have lodged several complaints about the misuse of the title. That's it in a nutshell. If some facts are incorrect, you may correct me . I only know this cos I asked the same question a few years ago, and I have since had to explain it to several colleagues during this world cup

Wow, I know Holland was an area inside the Netherlands but I didn't know about the 5 year "Kingdom of Holland" title.

Facts, by very definition, are never incorrect... so if you have written something that is incorrect, it is not a fact and people may say "Is that a fact?!" as if expressing surprise... and you'd have to answer, "errrr, no, sorry."
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