Top 16 Facts About the Netherlands

Renowned for her cheese, canals, tulip fields, windmills, coffee shops and flat landscape, the Netherlands is a country located in Northwestern Europe. Amsterdam is the capital and largest city of the Netherlands. The five largest cities of the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, and Eindhoven. Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands, with West Frisian, Papiamento and English being official regional languages.

The October 2018 estimate of the Dutch population stands at 17,259,111. The country's form of government is the unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The Euro and the US dollar are the currencies used in the Netherlands. Willem-Alexander is the Netherlands' monarch, and Mark Rutte is the prime minister. Herewith a good number of impressive facts about this low-lying Dutchland country:

1. The Dutch consume the most licorice in the world. Dutch shops sell more than 80 varieties of licorice, with each person eating more than 2000 grams per year! More than 20% of all candy sold in the Netherlands is drop ("licorice" in Dutch). 33.6 million kilograms of licorice are consumed in the Netherlands annually.

 

2. The Netherlands is the second largest exporter of beer in the world. In 2014, the Netherlands exported food worth $92,845,387,781.

3. All Dutch electric trains - which serve about 600,000 passengers per day - are powered by renewable wind energy.

4. The Netherlands legalized same-sex marriage in 2001, thereby becoming the first country to legalize same-sex marriage.

5. The Netherlands came second in the 2018 edition of the Global Innovation Index report, making her the third most innovative country in the world.

6. The Netherlands is the world's biggest producer and exporter of tulips.

7. The Netherlands has the best healthcare system in Europe and the fifth best healthcare system in the world.

8. The tallest people in the world come from the Netherlands. Dutch men are the tallest in the world, with an average height of 183.8 cm.

Dutch females average 170.7 cm, making the Netherlands the second country with the tallest women; the first is Latvia.

9. There are more bikes than people in the Netherlands. There are about 1.3 bicycles per person in the Netherlands. The bike culture is an integral part of the Dutch. About 36% of the Dutch population use bicycles as their main method of transportation on a typical day.

10. The Netherlands is the second largest food exporter in the world.

11. CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray are Dutch inventions. In collaboration with Sony, the Dutch company, Philips, developed CDs in 1979, in their headquarters in Eindhoven. Other technological Dutch inventions include cassettes, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

12. Orange carrots originated in the Netherlands. They were developed by Dutch farmers in the 16th century. At the time, carrot colors ranged from pale yellow to purple.

13. The Netherlands is the second most densely populated country in Europe, with a population density of 394 people per square kilometer.

14. Major Dutch inventions include: the telescope, microscope, submarine, Olympic flame, eye tests, the thermometer, gin, the stock market, and fair trade.

15. Like her name suggests, the Netherlands is one of the countries with the lowest average elevations in the world. The Netherlands literally means "low countries". The Netherlands comes third in the ranking of countries with the lowest average elevations (34 meters/112 feet above sea level). The Netherlands is the lowest country in Europe. 26% of the Netherlands sits below sea level.

16. The Netherlands is a founding member of the WTO, NATO, OECD, G10, Eurozone, and the EU. It is also part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union.