Queen Wilhelmina, 1925 issue
The Netherlands, a densely populated country located in Western Europe, has three island territories in the Caribbean Sea. The European part of the Netherlands is located between 50° and 54° north latitude and between 3° and 8° east longitude, bordering Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the United Kingdom and Germany to the west. It is a very low and flat country, with about 26% of the area and 21% of the population lying below sea level, while only about 50% of the land is more than one meter above sea level. Most of the country is flat, except for the foothills in the southeast, with a maximum altitude of no more than 330 meters, and some low mountains in the center. Most areas below sea level are man-made, resulting from peat mining or through land clearing. Since the end of the 16th century, the large area has been preserved through an elaborate drainage system including embankments, canals and pumping stations. Nearly 17% of the country's land area comes from oceans and lakes.
Netherlands map
The Netherlands is divided into north and south parts by the Rhine , the Waal, its main tributary branches and the Meuse. In the past, these rivers acted as natural barriers between feudal systems and thus historically created a cultural divide, which is evident in certain phonetic features on both sides of what the Dutch call "de Grote Rivieren" . Another important branch of the Rhine, the IJssel river, drains into Lake IJssel, the former Zuiderzee ("Southern Sea"). Like the previous river, this river creates a linguistic divide: people to the northeast of this river speak a Dutch Low Saxon dialect (except for the province of Friesland, which has its own language)
Three of the largest cities in the Netherlands It's Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague . Amsterdam is the country's capital, while The Hague is the seat of the Dutch parliament and government. The Port of Rotterdam is the world's largest port outside East Asia and the largest port in Europe. The name Holland is used informally to refer to the entire country of the Netherlands.
"Netherlands" literally means " Low Countries ", influenced by its lowland and flat geography. The whole of the Netherlands is often referred to by the older name Holland (meaning Holt land or woodland). Strictly speaking, the term refers only to the provinces of Noord-Holland and South-Holland, two of the country's twelve provinces, formerly a single province and, before that, the County of Holland. This originally Frankish county arose from the disbanded Kingdom of Friesland and, following the decline of the Duchy of Brabant and the County of Flanders, became economically and politically It is the most important county in the Low Countries region.
The Netherlands is the world's second largest exporter of food and agricultural products after the United States. This is partly due to the fertile soil and mild climate. It is the third country in the world to have an elected parliament and has been ruled as a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy since 1848, united as one country. The Netherlands has a long history and is generally considered a liberal country, decriminalizing abortion, prostitution and euthanasia while maintaining a progressive drug policy. In 2001, it became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.
The prehistoric region of what is now the Netherlands was shaped to a large extent by the seas and rivers that constantly transformed the geography of the lowlands. The oldest humans in the Netherlands (Neanderthals) were found in higher soils near Maastricht and are believed to date around 250,000 years ago. After the end of the Ice Age, the area was inhabited by many Paleolithic inhabitants, and around 8000 BC Mesolithic tribes lived in the provinces of Friesland and Drenthe, where the oldest canoe in the world was restored . Attested from around 5600 BC onwards, indigenous hunter-gatherers from the Swifterbant culture, who were closely connected to rivers and open water, were closely related to the Eterbore culture of southern Scandinavia (5300-4000 BC )related. In the West, the same tribes may have established hunting camps to hunt winter sports. People turned to animal husbandry sometime between 4800 and 4500 BC. The agricultural transformation occurred very slowly between 4300 BC and 4000 BC.The agricultural Funnelbeaker culture extended from Denmark to northern Germany and into the northern Netherlands, erecting the large stone tomb monument at Drenthe (built between 4100 and 3200 BC).
The discovery of copper artifacts meant trade with other parts of Europe, as the metal is not usually found in Dutch soil. The Bronze Age probably began around 2000 BC and lasted until around 800 BC. Rare and valuable items have been found in Drenthe, suggesting it was a Bronze Age trading center. The Bell Beaker Culture (2700-2100 BC) developed locally into the Bronze Age Wire Beaker Culture (2100-1800 BC). In the second millennium BC, the region was the border between the Atlantic Ocean and the northern European horizon, roughly divided by the Rhine River. To the north, the Erp culture (c. 1800 to 800 BC) was a Bronze Age archaeological culture whose pottery was of poorer quality. Apparently related to the ancient Mullerian culture of central Europe (1600-1200 BC). After this phase, the custom of cremation burials followed (1200-800 BC). The southern region is dominated by the Hilversum culture (c.1800-800 BC), which apparently inherited cultural links with Britain from the previous Thorny Beaker culture.
The Iron Age brought a certain degree of prosperity. Iron ore is available throughout the country, including iron ore extracted from ores found in peat bogs in the north, naturally iron-bearing pellets found in the Veluwe and red iron ore near the Brabant River. Smith moved from small settlements to ones that used copper and iron and made tools as needed, including axes, knives, pins, arrowheads, and swords. There is even evidence that Damascus steel swords were made using advanced forging methods that combined the flexibility of iron with the strength of steel. The tomb of a king of Oss dating back to 500 BC was discovered in a cemetery, the largest in Western Europe, which contained an iron sword inlaid with gold and coral.
Climate deterioration in Scandinavia around 850 BC, and further deterioration in 650 BC, may have triggered the migration of Germanic tribes from the north. By the end of the migration, around 250 BC, a number of general cultural and linguistic groups had emerged. North Sea Germanic-speaking Ingvar people lived in the northern part of the Low Countries. They later developed into the Frisii and early Saxons.
The second group is the Weser-Rhine Germanic (or Istvaeones), who stretch along the middle Rhine and Weser and live in the Low Countries south of the great river. This group included the tribes that would eventually evolve into the Salian Franks. The Caltic La Tène culture (conquered by the Romans around 450 BC) developed over a wide area including the southern parts of the Low Countries. Some scholars have speculated that even a third ethnic identity and language, whether Germanic or Celtic, survived in the Netherlands until the Roman period, the Iron Age Nordwest neighborhood culture, and eventually the Cayennes of the south. The Celts and the Germanic people from Germany were destroyed.
During the Gallic Wars, Roman troops occupied the area south of the Oude Rijn and west of the Rhine under Julius Caesar from 57 to 53 BC. Caesar describes two main tribes living in what is now the southern Netherlands: the Menapii and the Eburones. The Rhine River was designated as Rome's northern border around AD 12. Famous towns will appear along the limestone Germanic Cus: Nijmegen and Voorburg. In the first part of Gallia Belgica, the area to the south of Lime became part of the Roman province of Germania. The area north of the Rhine, inhabited by the Frisii, remained outside Roman rule (but not under its rule and control), while the border tribes Batavi and Cananefates He served in the Roman cavalry.
The Batavians revolted against the Romans in the Batavian Rebellion of 69 AD, but were ultimately defeated.The Batavi later merged with other tribes into the confederacy of the Salian Franks, whose identity emerged in the first half of the third century. Salian Franks are both allies and enemies in Roman texts. The Salian Franks were forced from the east by an alliance of Saxons to cross the Rhine into Roman territory in the fourth century. They raided the English Channel from new bases in West Flanders and southwestern Holland. Roman troops pacified the area but did not expel the Franks, who remained feared at least until Julian the Apostate (358) allowed the Salian Franks to settle as traitors in Toxandria. After climatic conditions worsened and the Romans withdrew, the Frisii disappeared from the northern Netherlands and were probably forced to resettle as Laeti in Roman territory. 296. Over the next two centuries, the coastal lands remained largely uninhabited.
After the fall of the Roman government in the region, the Franks expanded their territory into many kingdoms. By the 490s, Clovis I had conquered all these territories in the southern Netherlands and unified them into a Frankish kingdom, and from there continued his conquest of Gaul. During this expansion, the Franks migrated south, eventually adopting the vulgar Latin of the local inhabitants. As the Franks remained in their original homeland in the north (i.e., the southern Netherlands and Flanders), the cultural gap between them continued to widen, and the Franks continued to speak Old Frankish, which by the ninth century had evolved into Old Low Frankish or Old Dutch. A Dutch-French linguistic border emerged.
To the north of the Franks, coastal climatic conditions improved and during the Migration Period this abandoned land was once again resettled, mainly by the Saxons, but also closely related Angles, Jutes and Archaic Frisii. Many moved to England and became known as the Anglo-Saxons, but those who stayed became known as Frisians, and their language became known as Frisian, named after the land that was once home to Frisian II. Frisian is spoken throughout the southern North Sea coast, and of the living languages of continental Europe it remains the language most closely related to English.
By the seventh century, the Kingdom of Frisia (650-734) emerged under kings Aldegisel and Redbad, with Utrecht becoming its center of power, And Dorestad was a prosperous trading place. Between 600 and 719 the city was frequently contested between the Frisians and the Franks. In 734, at the Battle of Boarn, the Frisians were defeated in a series of battles. With Frankish approval, the Anglo-Saxon missionary Willibrod converted the Frisian people to Christianity. He founded the Archdiocese of Utrecht and became bishop of the Diocese of Friesland. However, his successor Boniface was murdered by the Frisians at Dokum in 754.
The Frank-Carolingian Empire was modeled after the Roman Empire and controlled much of Western Europe. However, as of 843, it was divided into three parts - Eastern, Central and Western Francia. Much of what is today the Netherlands became part of Middle Franconia, a fragile kingdom subject to repeated secessions and annexations by its more powerful neighbours. It included territory from Frisia in the north to the Kingdom of Italy in the south. When the Middle Kingdom was divided, the lands north of the Alps passed to Lotherei II and were successively named Lotharingia. After his death in 869, Lotharingia was divided into Upper and Lower Lotharingia and Lower Haringia, the latter consisting of the Low Country, which was Although effectively under Viking control in 870,
around 850 Lathair I recognized Viking Rorik of Dorestad as Ruler of most of Frisia. Around 879, another Viking ship raided the Frisian lands of Godfrid, Duke of Frisia. Viking raids overwhelmed the region's French and German nobles.Resistance to the Vikings, if any, came from the local nobles, who gained height as a result, setting the stage for the disintegration of Lower Lotharingia into a semi-independent state. One of these local nobles was Gerolf of the Netherlands, who became lord of Frisia after assisting in the assassination of Godfrid, which brought an end to Viking rule.
In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Holy Roman Empire (the successor state of the East French Republic) ruled over many of the Low Countries but failed to maintain political unity. Powerful local nobles turned their cities, counties, and dukes into private kingdoms with little recognition of the emperor. The Netherlands, Hainaut, Flanders, Grere, Brabant and Utrecht were in an almost constant state of war or contradictory individual organizations. The language and culture of the majority of people living in Dutch County are originally Frisian. As Flemish settlement developed from Flanders and Brabant, the area soon became Frankish (or Old Dutch).
Around 1000 AD, the economy began to develop rapidly due to several agricultural developments, and higher productivity allowed workers to farm more land or become merchants. Towns were dotted with monasteries and castles, and a commercial middle class began to develop in these urban areas, especially in Flanders and later Brabant. Wealthy cities began to purchase certain privileges from sovereign states. In practice this meant that Bruges and Antwerp became quasi-independent republics themselves, later developing into some of the most important cities and ports in Europe.
Around AD 1100, farmers from Flanders and Utrecht began to drain and cultivate the uninhabited marshlands of the western Netherlands and gave rise to the possibility that the Dutch counties would become centers of power. The title of Count of the Netherlands was fought over in the Hoekse en Kabeljauwse twisten (Hoekse en Kabeljauwse twisten) between 1350 and 1490. The Codists were made up of the more advanced cities, the Hookers were made up of the conservative aristocrats. These nobles invited Duke Philip of Burgundy, who was also Count of Flanders, to conquer the Netherlands.
Most of the empire and the sealed areas of France were united into a private confederacy in 1433 by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. From 1384 to 1581. Before the Burgundian Union, the Dutch identified themselves by the town or local duchy or county in which they lived. The Burgundian period was the beginning of the road to nationhood. The new rulers defended Dutch trading interests, which subsequently developed rapidly.
The Dutch fleet defeated the Hanseatic fleet several times. Amsterdam continued to grow and in the 15th century became a major trading port for grains in the Baltic region of Europe. Amsterdam distributes grain to major cities in Belgium, northern France, and the United Kingdom. This trade was crucial because the Netherlands could no longer produce enough food to feed itself. Drainage of the land has reduced the peat of the former wetland to levels that were too low.
Under Charles V, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire and King of Spain, Habsburg, all the sealing areas of the current Netherlands were unified into seventeen provinces, which also included present-day Belgium, Luxembourg and today Some of the neighboring lands are France and Germany. In 1568, the Eighty Years' War began between the provinces and their Spanish rulers. In 1579, the northern half of the seventeen provinces established the League of Utrecht, in which they supported each other in the defense of the Spanish forces. The League of Utrecht is considered the foundation of modern Holland. In 1581, the northern provinces passed the "Abandonment Act" and declared their independence. The provinces officially deposed Philip II of Spain as the monarch of the northern provinces.
Britain's Protestant Queen Elizabeth I sympathized with the Dutch's struggle against the Spanish and sent an army of 7,600 soldiers to assist the Dutch in their war against Spanish Catholics. The British army under the command of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, had no real benefit against the Dutch rebellion.Charles V's son Philip II was unwilling to let them go, and the war continued until 1648, until Spain under King Philip IV finally recognized the independence of the seven northwestern provinces in the Peace of Munster. Parts of the southern provinces became de facto colonies for the new republican commercial empire.
After declaring independence, the Netherlands, Sealand, Groningen, Friesland, Utrecht, Overijssel and Gelderland formed a federation. All these principalities, lords and counties were autonomous and had their own governments, known as provincial governments. The federal government was made up of the states, located in The Hague, and composed of representatives from each of the seven provinces. The sparsely populated region of Drenthe is also part of the republic, although it is not considered one of the provinces. Furthermore, during the Eighty Years' War the Republic occupied many so-called universal lands in Flanders, Brabant and Limburg. Their population was primarily Roman Catholic, and the regions had no governmental institutions of their own.
During the Dutch Golden Age, which spanned much of the seventeenth century, the Dutch Empire grew into one of the major maritime and economic powers. Science, military affairs and the arts (especially painting) are among the most admired in the world. By 1650, the Dutch owned 16,000 merchant ships. The Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company established colonies and trading posts around the world, including ruling northern Taiwan from 1624 to 1662 to 1664 to 1667. The Dutch colonization of North America began with the establishment of New Amsterdam in southern Manhattan in 1614. The Dutch in South Africa settled the Cape Colony in 1652. Dutch colonies in South America established plains along the many rivers of fertile Guyana, including the colony of Suriname (Suriname). In Asia,
many economic historians regard the Netherlands as the world's first thoroughly capitalist country. In early modern Europe it had the richest trading city (Amsterdam) and the first full-time stock exchange. Traders' inventions created insurance and pensions and gave rise to boom-bust cycles, the world's first asset inflation bubble, the Tulip Mania of 1636-1637, and the world's first short raider, Isaac le Maire In other phenomena, he drives down prices by selling shares and then buying them back at a discount.
The year 1672 - known in Dutch history as the Rampjaar (Year of Disaster) - The Dutch Republic was at the same time at war with France, England and three German bishops. At sea, it could successfully deny British and French navies access to the west coast. But on land it was almost taken over by advancing French and German troops from the east. However, it may have turned things around by flooding parts of the Netherlands, but it never returned to its former glory and entered a state of general decline in the 18th century, as a result of economic competition from Britain and the long-standing feud between the two main Dutch factions. Against Dutch society, supporters of the Republican Staatsgezinden and stadtholder Prinsgezinden were the main political factions.
With the armed support of revolutionary France, the Dutch Republicans proclaimed the Republic of Batavia, modeled on the French Republic, and declared the Netherlands a unitary state on January 19, 1795. Stevenholder of Orange (William V) of Steinmarkt fled to England. From 1806 to 1810, the Kingdom of the Netherlands was established by Napoleon Bonaparte as a p state ruled by his brother Louis Bonaparte to more effectively control the Netherlands. King Louis Bonaparte attempted to serve the interests of the Dutch rather than those of his brothers, and he was forced to abdicate on July 1, 1810. The emperor sent troops and the Netherlands became part of the French Empire until the fall of 1813, when Napoleon was defeated. During the Battle of Leipzig.
William Frederick, the son of the last bearer, returned to the Netherlands in 1813 and proclaimed himself monarch of the Netherlands. Two years later, the Congress of Vienna added the Southern Netherlands to the north to create a strong state on France's northern border. William Frederick elevated the United Netherlands to a kingdom and proclaimed himself King William I. Additionally, William became hereditary Grand Duchy of Luxembourg in exchange for his German possessions.However, the southern Netherlands had been culturally separated from the north since 1581 and revolted. The south gained independence as Belgium in 1830, while the personal union between Luxembourg and the Netherlands was severed in 1890, when William III died without any surviving male heir.
The revolution in Belgium and the Java War in the Dutch East Indies brought the Netherlands to the brink of bankruptcy. However, the farming system was introduced in 1830; in the Dutch East Indies, 20% of rural land had to be set aside for government crop exports. This policy brought great wealth to the Netherlands and made the colony self-sufficient. On the other hand, the colonies of the West Indies (Dutch Guiana, Curaçao and the dependencies) relied heavily on African slaves, the proportion of which was Dutch estimated at 5 to 7 percent, that is, over 50 Thousands of Africans. The first Dutch postage stamp was issued in 1852, depicting King William III. The Netherlands abolished slavery in 1863. Furthermore, Suriname's slaves were only fully freed in 1873 due to a mandatory 10-year transition required by law.
The Netherlands was able to remain neutral during World War I, in part because goods imported from the Netherlands proved vital to Germany's survival until the British Royal Navy blockade in 1916. This situation changed during World War II, when Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940. The Rotterdam Blitz forced the main part of the Dutch army to surrender four days later. During the occupation, more than 100,000 Dutch Jews were rounded up and shipped to Nazi concentration camps, with only a handful of survivors surviving. Dutch workers were drafted into the German army for forced labor, resisting civilians were killed in retaliation for attacks on German soldiers, and the countryside was pillaged for food.
Although thousands of Dutch risked their lives by hiding from the Jews, more than 20,000 Dutch fascists joined the Waffen SS and fought on the Eastern Front. The political collaborators were members of the fascist State Security Service, the only legal political party in the occupied Netherlands. On December 8, 1941, the Dutch government-in-exile in London declared war on Japan, but was unable to prevent Japan from occupying the Dutch East Indies ( Indonesia ). In 1944–45, the Canadian First Corps, which included Canadian, British and Polish troops, was responsible for liberating much of the Netherlands. Shortly after VE Day, the Dutch launched a colonial war against the new Republic of Indonesia.
After World War II, the previous stamps were used until the launch of the new series on April 1, 1946. The series contains stamps originally issued by the Dutch government in 1944 during their exile in Britain.
In 1954, the Charter of the Kingdom of the Netherlands reformed the political structure of the Netherlands as a result of international pressure for decolonization. On an equal basis, the Dutch colonies of Surinam and Curaçao, as well as client states and European states, became states within the kingdom. Indonesia declared independence in August 1945 (recognized in 1949), so it was never part of the reformed kingdom. Suriname followed in 1975. After the war, the Netherlands also left behind an era of neutrality and established closer ties with its neighbors. The Netherlands was a founding member of the Benelux countries, NATO, Euratom and the European Coal and Steel Community, which later evolved into the EEC (Common Market) and later the European Union.
Government efforts to encourage immigration to reduce population density prompted some 500,000 Dutch people to leave the country after the war. The 1960s and 1970s were a period of dramatic social and cultural changes, such as rapid ontzuiling (literally: depilation), a term that describes the decline of old divisions along political and religious lines. Young people, especially students, rejected traditional customs and initiated changes on issues such as women's rights, disarmament and environmental issues.
Dutch primary school students
In 1807, the Netherlands promulgated its first postal law. In 1844, the railroad company signed a contract with the Post Office to carry mail between cities by railroad. It was not until 1997, 153 years later, that railway postal transportation was completely replaced by road postal transportation. In 1852, the Netherlands issued its first postage stamp, featuring a portrait of King William II.Under the Postal Act of 1870, letters with stamps were cheaper than letters without stamps. In 1915, the Dutch Post and Telegraph Office was changed to the state-owned Post and Telegraph Company (P&T). In 1928, it was renamed Postal Telegraph and Telephone Company (PTT).
During the PTT period, Post Netherlands reduced the number of mail deliveries per day from 4 to 3 times. After World War II, it was changed to 2 times. Since the late 1960s, there has only been one delivery per day. Automatic mail sorting machines were introduced in the 1930s. With the implementation of postal codes in 1977, sorting speeds were greatly improved and automatic sorting to house numbers was possible. The postal savings business was integrated into the Postal Bank in 1986.
During the privatization wave at the end of the 20th century, PTT became independent on January 1, 1989. The government was no longer the only shareholder. It was renamed KPN and went public in 1994. In 1998, Post and Telecom separated and became an independent company, TPG Post. In 2006, it was renamed TNT Post. In 2011, it split again to form TNT Express Company and Royal Mail Company Post NL. The latter is marked by the postal under the crown, enclosed in a triangle, seen in the middle of the thick red line at the bottom of the souvenir sheet.
In 1925, the Dutch Post Office issued a total of 14 stamps with the portrait of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, with different face values from 5 cents to 60 cents, mainly distinguished by color. This green stamp has the smallest face value of 5 cents, and the Michel catalog is 151B.
Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands ruled for 50 years from 1898 to 1948. During this period, she experienced the most unforgivable years of World War I and World War II. However, she also placed her hope in peace and her unyielding spirit of resisting fascist aggression, which made her portrait a war-torn A spiritual symbol of the period. Her strong courage was praised by the then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as "the only real man in the Dutch government"
