The Netherlands Will No Longer Be Called Holland

When most people think of Holland, they think of beautiful fields of tulips, windmills and wooden shoes. If you have ever thought about visiting the area, you can still go enjoy the sights and sounds but you won’t officially be able to do it in Holland anymore.

The Dutch government has made a decision that they will no longer be using the name ‘Holland’ for their country and will stick with the official name, The Netherlands. They started the rebranding late last year and they are still working on it but during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, they are only going to be referred to as “The Netherlands.”

Although most people will refer to the country by the name, The Netherlands, they are actually officially known as the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This may make you wonder why they are now commonly known as Holland.

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Just as there are 50 states in the United States, there are 12 provinces in the Netherlands. Altogether, they make up the Netherlands but two of the 12, Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland are collectively referred to as the region of Holland. That area has been the most populous for quite some time, considering that Rotterdam and Amsterdam are in the region. Britain and many other parts of the English-speaking world began referring to the entire nation as Holland mistakenly.

The Dutch government followed suit by the time the 20th century came around. In order to appeal to tourists and investors, they started using the name Holland as well. The official tourism site for the Netherlands is Holland.com, but the Dutch government decided that change was in order.

Tourists typically find themselves in the region of Holland and the other 10 provinces don’t get visited as often. The government would like to change that and have people look into the entire country when visiting.

The transition and official branding toward using “The Netherlands” is ongoing and the tourism site is currently still Holland.com. That may just change in the future so that visitors are encouraged to travel throughout the nation.

Even the logo for the country is changing. It used to be an orange tulip with Holland written across it now the logo will be an orange tulip with ‘NL’. Orange will still remain the official color of the Netherlands because it is the color of the Dutch Royal Family.