The new layout is over two years old and still takes some getting used to. What the experts say and the historical reason that caused it.
We don’t always know countries by their official names. For political or historical reasons, some have changed names in recent years, such as when the Czech Republic decided to become the Czech Republic or when the first day of 2020 “Netherlands” decided that it no longer wants to be called “Holland” abroad, but always to be used its official name:Netherlands”.
The data is repeated now in times of Qatar World Cup, with the Netherlands playing their first World Cup under their new name. In Brazil 2014 he was eliminated against Argentina on penalties and his name was Holland; in Russia 2018 they did not qualify for the final phase.
“Holland”, geographically and properly speaking, never referred to the entire country, but to the southern provinces, the border with Belgium and the coast. The country of Prime Minister Mark Rutte is geographically divided into 12 provinces. Two of them, South Holland and North Holland, are home to the largest cities: Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, the economic and political heart of the country.
The other ten provinces are not “Dutch”. Calling them that would be the same as calling Salta “Patagonian” even though the distances are much smaller. Thus, for example, the city of Utrecht, home to a powerful university and another of the country’s great poles, is in the province of the same name, so saying, for example, “the Dutch city of Utrecht” is a mistake.
For more than two centuries, from 1588 to 1795, the territory we now designate as the “Netherlands” and colloquially as “Holland” was a Republic of seven states. Most of that period the country was under Spanish rule, in what became known as “Spanish Flanders”.
In 1744 the Spanish left what is now the “Netherlands” after several military defeats but in 1795 the French troops took control of it until 1806. Napoleon Bonaparte he decided to make his brother Louis king of the “Netherlands”. Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo (Belgium) restored the country’s independence, which maintained a monarchy that passed to the House of Orange, from which Guillermo, Máxima’s husband, descends.
Those years saw an economic boom in cities located in the Dutch regions of the countryso that the term “Holland” began to be used more and more abroad.
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Netherlands
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infographic: Clarion
In addition to a decree for all public bodies, both at home and abroad, to stop using “Holland” and switch to using “Netherlands”, the government paid €200,000 for the design of the country’s new logo, a kind of orange tulip (the most typical flower of the country) (that of his Royal House) formed from a stylized drawing of the letters N and L (Nederland).
When the change was approved, Foreign Trade Minister Sigrid Kaag said the issue also dealt with her business: “It was time to modernize. A clear international logo is a plus for exports and for attracting investors and talent.”
But attention, not to exaggerate with the subject. Calling Holland the Netherlands would not be incorrect either. Experts consider that it is a “particularizing synecdoche”, a stylistic figure to name the use of the part to refer to the whole.
With information published in October 2020.