Did you know?

i) The Netherlands in its entirety is often referred to as Holland, although North and South Holland are actually only two of its twelve provinces. This because historically Holland was the most powerful region in the current Netherlands and the cities in Holland were important trading cities. Since Holland was the most economically developed region of the Netherlands, it was historically the region that dominated foreign trade, and hence most of the Dutch traders encountered by foreigners were from Holland, which explains why the Netherlands is often called Holland overseas. Moreover after the demise of the Dutch Republic under Napoleon, that country became the Kingdom of Holland (1806–1810). Interestingly in football, the Dutch national team is commonly referred to as "Holland".

ii) The word Dutch is used to refer to the people, the language, and anything pertaining to the Netherlands. The word “Dutch” (in Dutch: Nederlands) has the same etymological origin as Deutsch (German), meaning “those who speak a popular language (and not Latin)”.

iii) With Belgium and Luxembourg it forms the Benelux economic union. From this experience will be formed the European Union. But when Croatia will enter in EU? :'-(

iv) Afrikaans, spoken in South Africa and the southern part of Namibia, is derived from the Dutch language and closely related to it.

v) Abel Tasman gave the name New Holland to the continent now known as Australia, a name it retained for 150 years until the United Kingdom renamed it in 1824.

Reference

http://dutch.berkeley.edu/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands