Home > Seventeen Provinces

• Groningen
• Friesland
• Overijssel (with Drenthe and Lingen)
• Gelre (with ZutphenZutphen (old alternate spelling: Zutfen is a municipality and a town in the province of Gelderland in the Netherlands on the right bank of the IJssel at the influx of the Berkel, and a junction station 29 km by rail N. of Arnhem. The city of Zutphen Intro) (after 1543Events February 11 Battle of Wayna Daga Ethiopian/ Portuguese? troops defeat the armies of Adal and the Ottoman Empire. May Nicolaus Copernicus publishes De revolutionibus orbium coelestium July 12 King Henry VIII of England marries Catherine Parr. It is)
• UtrechtUtrecht is the smallest province of the Netherlands, and is located in the center of the country. It is bordered by the IJsselmeer in the north, Gelderland in the east, the river Rhine in the south, South Holland in the west, and North Holland in the nort
• HollandThis article is about the region in the Netherlands. For other uses, see Holland (disambiguation). Holland is the name of a region in the central-western part of the Netherlands. Holland is a former county of the Holy Roman Empire and later the leading me
• ZeelandFor the U. towns of the same name see Zeeland, Michigan and Zeeland, North Dakota respectively. Netherlands Zeeland is a province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the south-west of the country, consists of a number of islands (hence its name '

Three others were divided between north and south (which later became Belgium):

• LimburgLimburg is the easternmost province of Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium, and is located west of the Meuse river. It borders on (clockwise from the North) the Netherlands and the Belgian provinces of Liege, Flemish Brabant and Antwerp. Its cap
• BrabantBrabant is a former duchy in the Low Countries. The northern part, Noord-Brabant is now a province of the Netherlands, while the southern part comprises three provinces of Belgium, Antwerp, Walloon Brabant and Flemish Brabant. Prior to 1995, Walloon Braba
• Flanders remained mostly part of the south, but later lost half its territory to France in the wars with Louis XIV

Of the remaining territories:

• Luxembourg remained part of the south but half of it became an independent entity after the Napoleonic wars
• Hainaut, Namur and Mechelen remained part of the south
• Artois, Tournai and Douai became French later.

In addition, there were a number of fiefdoms in this region that were not part of the Netherlands, the largest one is Liege. In the north, there were also a few smaller entities like the island of Ameland, that would retain their own lords until the French revolution.

In the days of Charles V, there is no doubt that the economic, political and cultural center was the south, although Holland was gradually gaining importance in the 15th and 16th centuries. In fact, the south was one of the leading economic regions of Europe at the time.

However after the independence of the seven northern provinces and the resulting closure of the Scheldt river to navigation, a large number of people from the southern provinces emigrated north to the new republic. The center of prosperity moved from cities in the south such as Bruges, Antwerp, Ghent, and Brussels to cities in the north including Amsterdam, the Hague, and Rotterdam.

To distinguish between the older, larger Netherlands from the current country, Dutch speakers usually drop the plural for the latter. They speak of Nederland for the current country and de Nederlanden for the domains of Charles V. In other languages, this has not been adopted, though the larger area is sometimes known as the Low Countries in English.

The fact that the same term Netherlands has such different historical meanings can sometimes lead to difficulties in expressing oneself correctly. For example, composers from the 16th century are often said to belong to the Nederlandse School. Although they themselves would not have objected to that term, today it may wrongly create the impression that they were from the north. In fact, they were almost exclusively from the south.

After Charles' V abdication in 1556, his realms became divided between his son, Philip II and his brother, Ferdinand I. The part of the Netherlands under his control went to his son, the king of Spain. Hence, it became known as the Spanish Netherlands. Under the Treaty of Utrecht ( 1713), after Spain's defeat in the War of the Spanish Succession, this was ceded to Austria and thus became known as the Austrian Netherlands, which rebelled against Austria in 1788.