Holland or Netherlands?

Question

Why is this one country know by both names? The people are known as Dutch. Why? I have been asking this question to my friends at home and no one knows the answers. If you accept that Germany is only known as Germany and the people are Germans, South African is known as South Africa and the people are South Africans. I am confused.

Answer 1

Another confusing thing is the fact that this country has two capital cities. One is Amsterdam, the biggest city of the Kingdom, the other is The Hague, the residence of the Dutch government/parliament.

Answer 2

It's a common misunderstanding and a question that often appears here, don't worry :0)

Actually the country is known as 'Nederland' (which is what it is called in Dutch).  This is translated to the 'Netherlands' in English

Holland is actually the name of two of the twelve provinces here (not just one as people keep saying!) - 'Noord Holland' & 'Zuid Holland' (North and South) e.g. Amsterdam is part of Noord Holland, and Den Haag (The Hague) is part of Zuid Holland

Dutch - Actually the Dutch are "Nederlanders", but this is translated in English to "Dutch" is used.  Now there are several different arguements about where this comes from:

(a) That the word Dutch comes from Diets, a very old word in an ancient (Dutch) language meaning "The people" http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

(b)  That the English kept using the word when all others started to use other names, because there used to be (in English that is) Duchy of Holland. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

You mentioned that there is only one name for other countries - actually most countries have a different name in their own language from the one that it used in English (and also for what they call their own language)

e.g. Germany is Deutschland (in German), and German is Deutsch

Italy is Italia, and Italian is Italiano

Croatia is Hrvatska, and Croatian is Hrvatski

Spain is España, and Spanish is español

...............(and the list goes on)

P.s. South Africa is even more complex -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_na...

So hope this helps to explain in an easy way

Answer 3

Well, Holland is a part of the Netherlands, but I don't know why people call "the Netherlands" Holland. And I don't know why they're call the "Dutch".

Answer 4

Because people do not know the difference.

The Netherlands is the country.

Holland is a province (in Amercia it would be called a state) of The Netherlands.

Holland's capital is Amsterdam and it is also the city where foreigners arriving by plane land.... at Schiphol Airport.

Holland is one of the better known provinces in The Netherlands maybe that's why people get confused.

The people of The Netherlands are called the Dutch.

The natives of the province of Holland are called Hollanders.

Same as an American can be called a Bostonian or Chicagoan.

So>>> all Hollanders are Dutch but all Dutch are not Hollanders.

Hope this helps.

Answer 5

the contry is called the Netherlands, holland is the central province/state around the capital city amsterdam. the people are called Nederlanders in there native language and when its translated into english they are called dutch.

Answer 6

Join the crew! Wait till you start tying to understand females.