Mainland Netherlands consists of twelve provinces. All of them have a name, which is rather convenient. Some of these names are very old, others find their origins in much more recent times. If you find yourself asking: “Whoopdeedoo, what does it all mean, Basil?!!”, I strongly advice you to read on and find out, in this who’s-who of Dutch province names.
I’ve already mentioned this in the post about Holland vs. The Netherlands, but let’s start with a quick recap: the Netherlands, the official name of the country, or Nederland in Dutch, simply means low lands, which isn’t strange at all when you realize about a quarter of the country sits below sea level, and the land never exceeds 322 meters above it. Quite the apt name, if you ask me.
But what about the provinces? Let’s find out!
Oh, I’ve done one about the most populous cities as well! Check it out here.
Noord-Holland
I’m starting with Noord-Holland, because it’s home to our very own capital city of Amsterdam (and obviously not even remotely because I live in it myself). If you’ve read the post mentioned above, you may remember that Holland – which is not the official name of the country, but is still widely used as such – is named after the word holtland, which is old Dutch for woodland – there were a whole bunch of trees here. Noord simply means north, so it’s the northern part of the woodland area.
Zuid-Holland
I’m going to let you figure this one out for yourself – yes, Zuid-Holland is actually called South Woodland. Together with Noord-Holland, it was once simply called Holland, both by the Dutch and even the Romans, who called the people who lived in this combined area Hollandi. Not only did the name stick, many of the world’s inhabitants believe Holland is an exact synonym of the Netherlands, again, which isn’t quite right.
Zeeland
Keep going south, and you’ll end up in Zeeland. The origin of this name isn’t all that interesting (zee means sea, land means land, so it’s land in the sea, which is exactly what looks like when you glance at a map), but what is interesting, is how it ended up being the name of another fully fledged country on the other side of the planet.
When the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman arrived in what is now New Zealand, he thought he ended up in southern South America, but once chart makers realized he had discovered a whole bunch of new(-ish) land, they called it Nova Zeelandia, even though Tasman wasn’t from Zeeland – there’s plenty of sea around New Zealand, though. And yes, he also discovered Tasmania.
Fun fact: mainland Australia was once called Nieuw-Holland, all the way from Tasman’s arrival in 1644 until those pesky Brits came along and changed the name.
Noord-Brabant
When you travel east from Zeeland, you step into Noord-Brabant. The noord part, again, just means north, because people had thought it wise to draw a border with Belgium right through the whole area. Brabant comes from the old Dutch word braecbant. Braec means something like fallow (we still use the word braak for that), and bant just means area: the area of the fallow lands, and the northern part at that.
Limburg
Go even more east, and you’ll find a slither of land, more or less tucked in between Germany and Belgium, but it still very much belongs to us (yay!). It’s called Limburg, and it’s named after a village in Belgium with a similar name, Limbourg. Bourg/burg is a word you’ll find a lot in place names all over this part of Europe, and the rest of the world for that matter – it means castle. The origin of the lim part is unclear, it may have to do with the Latin word limes, or border, or with an old German word for swamp.
Gelderland
Directly north of Limburg, almost like an umbrella covering it, is Gelderland. Gelderland shares a fairly sizeable border with Germany, so it’s no surprise those guys gave it its name, derived from the village of Geldern. Nobody knows exactly what that name means, but it may be yet another version of swampy lands. What we do know, is that one of the counties in the neighborhood was called Gelre, after the German village, and from there, the name Gelderland was born.
Utrecht
West of Gelderland lies Utrecht, dead-center in the heart of the country. The name is a direct Dutchification of the Latin Ultraiectum, in which traiectum means place where you can cross the river, which later received the prefix ultra, as in: a river crossing further down the river than another known river crossing (probably the city of Maastricht).
Overijssel
When you go back to Gelderland and then move north, you’ll end up in Overijssel. The IJssel is a river that still flows through the Netherlands to this day, and over in Dutch means over, or across, in English. Overijssel is the bit of land on the other side of the river IJssel, seen from the province of Utrecht. It’s been called this since the late Middle Ages.
Drenthe
We’ll keep going north, and walk right into Drenthe. This one’s not as clear and obvious as some of the others, but we do know it used to be called Thriantia in the Middle Ages. The thri part is probably related to the word three, and historians think it once may have been divided up into three separate regions, but sources on that are a tad fuzzy.
Groningen
We’re not quite back at the top yet, for there’s also Groningen – the most fun one to pronounce for non-Dutchies. This one’s not 100% clear either, but the accepted theory is that the gron part is the name of a village (perhaps Gruno), the ing part means people, and the en bit is similar to the word hem, or heim, meaning something like house or living area in many languages. Put them together, and you’ll end up with living area of the people of Gruno, or Groningen.
Friesland
West of Groningen lies Friesland, and this is another easy-peasy one. In ancient times, the people who lived in this area were called the Frisians, or something like it. They were a Germanic tribe that just sat here happily for ages. We’ve never bothered to change the name, and so we end up with land of the Frisians, or land van de Friezen in Dutch – Friesland, to friends.
Flevoland
I’ve saved Flevoland for last, because it’s easily the newest province in the country. Flevoland didn’t become a province until as late as 1986 – yes, that’s 40-ish years ago – and it was ‘built’ not long before that. It’s reclaimed land from the water of the IJsselmeer (the same IJssel river from Overijssel unloads into that lake). This IJsselmeer already existed in the Roman era, and they called it Flevo, an ancient Indo-European word that means to flow. When we built the province (sounds cool, doesn’t it?!), we honored that name.
Long story short
So there you have it! Most of the twelve Dutch provinces are named after features of the land or the people living in it, some are named after villages nearby, while others are a bit unclear, but probably also come from ancient names of places or towns. Save for Flevoland, these have existed together like this for at least a few hundred years, and it doesn’t look like we’re going to change things around anytime soon – until we decide we want to build a thirteenth province out in the North Sea, or something.
