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Question
#54109. Linaw50
asks:
Why is Holland also known as The Netherlands?
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TabbyTom
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North Holland and South Holland are two of the twelve provinces that make up the Kingdom of the Netherlands. About half the population of the country lives in these coastal provinces, which include the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague, Leiden and Haarlem. Because of the relative importance of the provinces, the name is often applied to the Netherlands as a whole.
Similarly, the United Kingdom is often called England (to the annoyance of the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish.)
Jan 16 05, 3:25 PM
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Baloo55th
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In a way the question is the wrong way round. As Tom points out, Holland is a part of the Netherlands, which means low lands. Holland in English places (Downholland and Up Holland - note spellings!) means place in a nook of a hill. Don't think that applies to the Netherlands.
Jan 16 05, 5:56 PM
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Flem-ish
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Holland as a name derives from "holt-land" wooded land.
The name "Netherlands" refers to the old name "the Low Countries by the Sea" and was originally a name for Flanders as well as for the Dutch Provinces of the Duchy of Burgundy and, later, the Spanish Empire.
An alternative name for the provinces of North- and South-Holland is "de Randstad", i.e. "the highly urbanised area at the edge of the country".
Occasionally the Dutch themselves created confusion. E.g. when during the legendary pre-World War II soccer-matches between Belgium and the Netherlands they supported their team with songs such as "Hup Holland, Hup.."etc.
From 1815 till 1830 "Belgium" and "the Netherlands" were in one kingdom, "the Kingdom of the Netherlands".
All very confusing, especially as also the name "Dutch" is unrelated to the name of the country. "Dutch" just as "Deutsch" derives from Germanic *theod-isk and simply means "of the people" (theod= people). Because of the similarity of the two words a number of "Deutsch"-speaking immigrants into the U.S.A. were misnamed the Pennsylvania "Dutch".
Jan 16 05, 7:56 PM
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gmackematix
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According to Brewer's Dictionary of Names, the Dutch name "Nederlands" was originally given to the area by Austrians who saw it as low compared to their own mountainous terrain.
On the origin of the Dutch name of the province of Holland could be from Old Dutch for "forest land" (Holtland) or "hollow land" (Holland) from its flatness. Brewers thinks the latter is more likely.
Jan 16 05, 8:00 PM
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Flem-ish
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Whatever Brewer may say the name Holt-land occurs already in a document dating back to 866 and then describes a wooded area south of Haarlem as had been found already by Dr.J. de Vries in 1959. (Etymologisch Woordenboek 1959)
The theory that the Austrians invented the name Netherlands/Niederlände cuts no ice because the name occurs already in 1515 and also occurred at that time in French: les pays d'embas, later "les Pays-Bas".
It may be worth mentioning that between 1551 and 1650 the language was called Nederlands, but from 1615 till 1814 the term Nederduytsch is used. (See de Vries and de Tollenaere in their more recent version of their Etymological Dictionary, published in 2000).
During the two World Wars the Germans tried to prove that "Nederlands" and "Nieder-Deutsch" or "Low German" were basically the same language, which irritated the Dutch but is not entirely wrong if you compare the dialects both sides of the border. They hardly differ.
The van Dale "Etymologisch Woordenboek" (1989) repeats what de Vries had researched already in 1959.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland
Jan 17 05, 3:10 AM
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Flem-ish
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There are other "undocumented" explanations as well. Two of them link Holland with the Vikings who either saw some similarity with Swedish Halland or must have found plenty of "oel" (ale) in that part of the Low Countries. Oel-land? But such "readings" of the name are probably as fantastic as deriving the name from a hypothetic Frau Holle Land.
By the way, the original Holland was a County. The Dutch Republic of the "Seven United Provinces" was a split up of the original Seventeen Provinces which had been created by the Burgundian Duke Philip the Good and had been continued under the Spanish rule of the Emperor Charles the Fifth until the so-called Dutch Revolt which in fact started in what is now Northern France ("French Flanders").
Jan 18 05, 12:12 AM
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