Holland

This article is about the region in the Netherlands. For other uses, see Holland (disambiguation).

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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 member of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands (1581-1795). Because of this historic dominating position, the name Holland is often applied to incorrectly denote the entire Netherlands. For a short time (1806-1810) however, there was the Napoleonic Kingdom of Holland, which did encompass the entire Netherlands.

The area is today divided between two provinces of the Netherlands: North Holland (Noord-Holland) and South Holland (Zuid-Holland) that were created in 1840.

The name Holland in this and the other entries on this page ultimately stem from holt land ("wooded land"). A popular, but incorrect etymology holds that it is derived from hol land ("hollow land"), inspired by the low-lying geography of both the Dutch and the English region.