(Newswire.net — October 16, 2019) — The Dutch government has decided to use only its real name – the Netherlands – and the change is part of an attempt to update the country’s global image.
A national council agreed on the name of the country and it is supported by the entrepreneurs organization. The tourism community and the central government meetings regarding the name change will be conducted later this year.
As part of the new strategy, the Netherlands will be the official name of the country. This name is to be promoted on the upcoming Eurosong contest to be held in Rotterdam in May next year as well as during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Likewise, even the football team, often referred to as the Holland national team, will exclusively be called the Netherland national team on any subsequent official occasion.
“We want to represent the Netherlands as an open, inventive and inclusive country. We have modernized our approach,” said a spokeswoman for the Dutch Foreign Ministry.
For the Dutch themselves, this is nothing new as the country is informally called the Kingdom of Netherlands.
Holland is actually geographically, and administratively, only two out of twelve provinces in the west of the country – Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland, out of the provinces in the whole of the Netherlands.
This is not even the first name change of this territory. Between 1588 and 1795 that part of Europe was called the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, then under the French occupation it became the Batavian Republic, and when Napoleon gave the land to his brother Louis in 1806 it was called the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The French were quick to leave but the name remained.
The name Holland itself is derived from the Old Dutch term – holtlant which means The land of trees, though the popular myth states that the meaning is derived from “hol” land – which means a low land. The one third of the country is actually below the sea level by as much as 22 feet.