Demographics of the Netherlands

I am in the mood for exposing things unknown at the moment, and today I realised that my geographical knowledge, which is pretty much entirely based around football, contained a nugget of knowledge which not everyone knows. It is that Holland and the Netherlands are not the same. I always preferred the name Holland to the Netherlands as a boy, feeling that Holland matched the flamboyance of Ruud Gullit's dreadlocks whereas the Netherlands sounded oldy worldy and slightly dull, but now the same connotations don't hold for me any more. The Netherlands sounds far more romantic and enticing and not boring at all; the Netherlands holds mystery and sounds like it belongs somewhere across the sea from Narnia. It somewhere where otters talk and leopards invite you out for a stroll. 

  Anyway, back to the matter in hand - Holland is not the same as the Netherlands, but an area within the Netherlands. North and South Holland make up just two of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands with Drenthe, Flevoland, Friesland, Gelderland, Groningen, Limburg, North Brabant, Overijssel, Utrecht and Zeeland the other ten. These twelve haven't always made up the Netherlands though - in the early 16th century Belgium and Luxembourg were included in seventeen Netherlands. Conflict between the provinces and Spain led to the Eighty Years' War or the Dutch War of Independence and as a result a Dutch Republic emerged made up of seven provinces. It has since expanded to the twelve that make up today's Netherlands.

  I am a quarter Dutch myself, but have never set foot on Dutch soil. I do, however, like to follow their World Cup process - could this year be their year? - and convince myself that if England persist in ignoring my footballing ability, then I will offer the Dutch my services, although sadly I don't qualify as neither of my parents are Ducth, I don't have a Dutch passport and I wasn't born in the Netherlands. Oh well, at least I know what they are.