NETHERLANDS Provinces, constituent countries/ Special municipalities EXPLAINED

hey guys so as you know we are in between major country episodes and that means it's time for a filler week let's do another administrative division video and this time we're going to take it back to Europe for the past few weeks I've been spending time getting footage for the USA episode and traveling to Native American reservations but I was not alone I flew over one of the few people that I know that understands and has a passion for geography as much as I do and he is Dutch so therefore we figured why not do an administrative division video on his home country come on in say hi to Mr Alka yeah Mr Alka oh hi he's uh he's definitely Dutch then we'll have to adjust the camera guys get ready uh yeah so I'm out and I run the page at lasova which you can find on Instagram and on YouTube and we do map stuff mostly map stuff so I figure if you like geography go check out my page and they make really good stuff all right uh all right Alka uh I don't know you want to talk about the Netherlands or something is let's begin life again so a few things you need to understand the Netherlands actually is a kingdom that means we a king and a queen that's great and there are three different types of administrative division provinces municipalities and constituent countries and uh let's start off with the biggest one the provinces shall we let's go so the first one is brente and the capital is awesome now this province has the lowest population density and has the lowest GDP per capita so it kind of like flies under the radar for most of the provinces but it really shouldn't because it does have some very ancient sites like the Hana bed burial mounts some are over 5000 years old they also have this National Park it's a heathland and it's one of the largest in Western Europe apparently Heath it's like the heath flowers or something beautiful what's awesome known for oh they have a racetrack that's cool awesome race track it's an awesome awesome race track next one flevoland Capital laylee start uh it's like the Netherlands biggest experiment so this is an interesting one not only because it's the newest Province and the smallest in the land area but it's the only province that is completely artificially made by reclaimed lands via folders yeah we already explained what what a polder is in the Netherlands episode but in case if you missed it it's basically like a place that was made by draining out all the waters but the land underneath becomes new land something like that right yeah they started doing this in the 50s and part of it were considered part of over isil and other province in the beginning but then they decided to make it officially a brand new province in 1986. you built an entire new Province Yep this meant that a bunch of new cities popped up and a lot of people actually moved from Amsterdam to Almera because Amsterdam was too expensive right yeah and this was the time where people were actually able to buy a car so they could live further away from where they worked so people moved to Almira now even though they don't have a lot of old sites everything's kind of new there they still have a lot of cool things to check out like the Batavia yard a museum and there's a lot of water sports such as sailing windsurfing kiteboarding all that sort of stuff is very popular here Foreverland it has a lot of flavor flavorless okay let's move on freeze land Capital Leo Warren it's the place with its own language Friesian they're very proud of it and it's actually the closest language to English and fun fact my name aoka is Friesian even though I'm not from there it's very difficult for me to understand it I understand maybe like 40 of it when they talk you probably wouldn't understand it not at all there's actually a video of a guy speaking Old English to a Frisian guy trying to buy a cow it went viral and the Frisian guy actually like understood him yep it was weird from a Dutch perspective what are the people of frizzy Friesland like um I think they're known to be very blunt and Brash they don't really care for an excessive lifestyle and many people will say maybe that they're the most beautiful people in the country I mean adults and Cruz is from there and pretty much everyone there looks like her ah got it helderland capital on him it's like the Wild Card Province you never know what you're gonna get here it's the largest Province by area and there are so many interesting random things here it's one of the largest nature preserves in the Netherlands and you can find you can actually find like there's a wildlife there it's also home to the largest waterfall in the Netherlands the Lunen waterfall which is a stunning 15 meters high which is 50 feet I studied there claims to be the oldest city dating back to Roman times about two thousand years old I have many of the castles and uh palaces are supposedly like haunted and abandoned so yeah there's a little bit of everything it's a wild card what the hell helderland so much going I don't know I can't even thrown again Capital it's the northernmost and isolated but fun Province so like Friesland they have the mud flats of the wooden sea which means you can actually walk to some of the islands on a good low tide date but don't do this on yourself it's super dangerous you should always do this with a guide froningen is known for one of its most famous uh universities it's one of the oldest in the country started in 1614. so it's kind of like a fun student vibe to this whole place you know uh what else uh they invented Corf ball yeah there is a little bit of a controversial thing to this area explain a little bit Alco yeah so Groningen does have the groaning and gas fields which which is good for the economy but not very good for the people living there because it causes earthquakes um because people don't like it when their house starts crumbling down right Lindbergh Limburg Limburg Limburg capital Mastery so Limburg is the southernmost Province and it is the only province that borders both Germany and Belgium so they have a fun accent because it almost sounds like every sentence they say ends in a question but it's all fun and games uh however Limburg is known for having like rolly hilly Landscapes because you know it's in the South you know everything else is kind of flatter up in the north yeah yeah we like to say that they have mountains um even though the highest point of European Netherlands is located there and it's only 322 meters or 1056 feet so both naimedes and helderland and maastrit in Limburg claimed to be the oldest city in the country both started as a Roman military Outpost about 2 000 years ago who knows who knows but let them battle it out and now we move on to North brabant the capital is Dutch language man okay so Elko this is your Province isn't it yes yes okay so tell us about it it's confusing because the province of North Providence is actually in the south of the Netherlands that's because in Belgium there is another Province called so we're north of that of the Belgian one yes yes so you guys probably know Vincent Van hoek Vincent van Gogh yeah uh yeah he actually is from North broadband and a fun fact I went to the same high school as Vincent van Gogh besides all the fun activities though North Providence is also known for having the smartest region in the country supposedly I explain a little bit well this is the area where they take giant Phillips originated from and it's now home to a bunch of tech startups and big companies like asml that produce machines that make the highest quality microchips in the world it's interesting because it has the n and exclaves of Bala Nassau and Barrel if you look at the map you'll see a bunch of different parts of Belgium inside the Netherlands inside Belgium inside the Netherlands it's a mess but it's interesting I explained about it in the Belgium episode guys uh check it out it's a weird City North Holland uh yeah capital is actually Harlem this is like the flashy Money Maker Province you've all heard of Amsterdam you know that's this province the canals the coffee shops crooked buildings that are technically sinking and that's very iconic of Amsterdam and North Holland yes but there is more through North Holland than just Amsterdam head up a little North and you have places like volendam Martin island which are Super Dutch iconic sites and you can also drive on the longest connection towards Friesland it's the offslide deck and yeah the Hollins is basically where everybody got the the misnomer where they thought this whole country was named Holland it's not it's just a province within Netherlands which brings us to the next Province South Holland capital denha in English the Hague this is the province that ate their prime minister I'll explain that but first it's the most populous Province and has cities like Rotterdam and the Hague Rotterdam is like the hard-working Port City uh with the busiest Harbor in all of Europe the Hague on the other hand is the capital that isn't the capital because it houses the government to Parliament and everything political also the Hague has the icj the international court of justice which settles debates between countries so you know yeah yeah don't go to war war is bad also if you receive a postcard from the Netherlands it likely features either Kinder Dyke with the beautiful windmills or the chilled fields near Lisa and that's all South Holland and also South Holland is where they ate their prime minister what can you explain okay that was back in 1672 but yeah still they did that they were angry they killed him and opened him up ate him South Holland it's fun okay South Holland now let's talk about over isil capital swalla swalla is home to many historic towns and Villages including hit horn pictures Village that is often called The Dutch Venice the city of zwola located in overrezel is a Charming hunsaic city that is known for its historic architecture the hansiatic league yeah look in your history yeah something crazy happened here by the way yes in May of 2000 a firework Factory actually exploded and the bad thing was that firework Factory was located in the middle of a neighborhood and it's super crazy it's like National trauma um it was terrible oh man okay well let's move on to Utrecht so Utrecht capital in the same name you track it's kind of like Amsterdam if there weren't as many tourists yeah they have the canals all the stuff the bicycle Lanes it's really the city is very vibrant due to its large student population and all these students of course ride their bicycles um so the city actually has the largest bicycle parking in the world I've been there it's it's like a big massive built parking structure yep just for bicycles so in general you think it's just known to have very beautiful parks and Gardens botanical gardens oh and a famous artist of Mondrian was from here and the only Dutch Pope was from Utrecht and finally the last Province Zen Capital Middleburg this is the original Zealand hey kiwis your country you know in New Zealand it was named it was named after this province so yeah heads up I used to go here a lot actually when I was a kid the province has beautiful beaches and it has the best seafood in the country when you call that fish the Herring that you eat with onions yeah Herring is there what's it called in Dutch it's the province with the lowest population in the country and has some of the most very religious towns the Netherlands has something we call the Bible Belt it's like a strip of towns that spans from over isol all the way to Zealand it's very prevalent here as the people sometimes wear traditional outfits and are known to have very strict Sunday rest or Sunday Sabbath in general this province is a beautiful flat and beachy and uh if you want to go for a swim and have some mussels and oysters this is the place to go so that was all the provinces but uh there's a little extra to this thing right there's a country called the Netherlands this is where we leave the European continent and move across the world to the Caribbean the Netherlands has six overseas islands that fall within their Kingdom located in the Caribbean these are often called The Dutch Caribbean right so the six islands three are constituent countries that means they're a country within the kingdom of the Netherlands those are sin Master Aruba and Curacao and then you have the three other Islands which are special municipalities so they fall under the country of the Netherlands that falls under the kingdom of the Netherlands those are are Bonaire saba and Center stasis uh it's kind of like the UK with Scotland Wales you know being constituent countries same deal Netherlands uh let's start with the special municipalities first so these islands technically are kind of like under the status of a town or a city rather than a province right yes yeah so they're that small but they're Islands so let's start with the first one Bonaire Capital karlandike it's the least populated of the ABC islands with only about 20 000 people and it's not a constituent country it's a special municipality even though it's located next to Aruba and Curacao you would think it is but it's not it's in the down but in St Martin is a country uh complicated famous for its uh bonarian style architecture which features brightly colored stuccoed buildings with red tile roofs they're home to the baconmir flamingo Sanctuary also lots of salt pans and salt pyramids which export salt all over the world during celebrations they'll serve bolo preto cake a traditional black cake made with raisins currants and rum rum cake is so good I love the whole Caribbean makes rum cake I love it next up Saint eustachius capital or any estad sanitation is also known as Stacia in the Caribbean is one of the smallest islands and is located right next to Saint Kitts and Nevis in fact on a clear sunny day you can even see it from the distance from the west side of Saint Kitts basically it's an island that was formed by two volcanoes that meshed together and the entire Island only has like 3 200 people and their only airport is actually named after Franklin Roosevelt so yeah overall it's a cool little island with good diving spots and a shipwreck next up is Saba another special municipality the capital is the bottom that's an interesting name for Capital they're nicknamed the unspoiled Queen of the Caribbean this is the smallest special municipality in the Kingdom of the Netherlands it only has about 2 000 people and funny enough although it is small it actually has the highest point in the entire Kingdom of the Netherlands Mount scenery which is actually an active volcano at 887 meters tall so your tallest point is on a small island yes it also has the world's shortest Airport runway the juancho E iraus Queen airport which is only about 400 meters wide and it drops right into a steep Cliff yeah it was literally the only place they could build an airport because most of the island is just built on steep Bridges and cliffs yeah small volcanic you could fall off a cliff tallest point Saba man Wild next up the constituent countries first up Aruba also the capital there is called orangistat so since it's a constituent country they use their own currency the arubian Florent as a currency however the US dollar is widely accepted historically it was inhabited by the Ottawa peoples and today you can even see petroglyphs in some of the caves basically the island was once part of Spain but they didn't really care for the island because it was dry and not capable of growing plantations so they kind of ditched it the Dutch came and found gold there was gold like that was gold yeah they missed out then there was a time when they became big on oil refining mostly due to the proximity to Venezuela and their oil fields yeah Saint Martin now this is a weird one because it's like half an island that's split with France on the North Saint Martin and they're both called St Martin uh the Dutch side is on the south and it's the only part where you guys border France it's true legislatively yeah and it's a constituent country it's like it's not even a whole island but it's a whole country oh yeah yes this is the island where you can stand really close to the runway of an airport and you see airplanes flying just 100 meters about a hundred feet above you and as a constituent country they use the Netherlands and tillian Gilder and the US dollar as a currency so most people here actually speak English not much Dutch but they still use it and they teach in schools and there was a story about a criminal too yeah oh right the the famous kidnapper of Heineken the Mr Heineken the beer brand he was kidnapped and the kidnapper was finally caught in France but because of all sorts of regulations and rules they couldn't extradite him through Belgium so they had to fly him over to Saint Martha so they could actually transport him to the Netherlands wow extradition laws are crazy and finally Curacao Capital willemstad it's the most populous of the ABC islands at around 150 000 people the official currency in Curacao is the Netherlands antillion Gilder but also here the US dollar is widely accepted just like Aruba they have a history of gold oil refining and the finance sector and tourism they play huge roles in their economy they are famous for their colorful houses in willemstadt built Punda architecture Dutch style Gables and shutters the island just like a Ruben Bonaire is kind of more dry and arid and there's lots of cacti stuff like that it's a cool landscape there's a liquor you've probably heard of it Blue Curacao and green Curacao it's actually made from their own lahara fruit they take the Peels and yeah they make that liquor so there you go that is everything that falls administratively in the Netherlands it is your home country let's imagine this was the Netherlands geography now episode you know how I say like in conclusion if this was your chance to say in conclusion how would you say in conclusion about Sutherlands putting me on the spot yes I am pressure pressure whole country watching uh it's a small flat country in Europe but has some weird anomalies in the Caribbean super interesting stuff but yeah I guess we're cool people who are very direct very blunt but in general I think we're friendly I think you are too um and uh clearly when I step down there's also another thing about you guys so cheers hope you guys have a good one stay cool stay tuned thank you [Music] foreign

Channel: Geography Now

Views: 238,861

Keywords: Geography, facts, info, cool, education, learning, countries, history, class, lesson, funny, travel

Id: eSiSH9BFDY8

Length: 16min 7sec (967 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 13 2023