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by YouKnowBetter 2792 days ago
1: It's easier to pronounce 2: Because it's easier to pronounce all foreigners use it 3: Because it's easier to pronounce and all foreigners use it, it is easier to use (If I introduce myself as being "from the Netherlands" I get blank looks. What I nowadays do is "I'm from Holland, Amsterdam, Ajax" and 90% of all people I know exactly where I am from). 4: Holland covers about 50% of the population, and about 70% of the economy 5: In Holland there is Amsterdam, Schiphol & Rotterdam basically the places that tourists go to or have heard about

PS The official name is "Kingdom of the Netherlands", I guess that solidifies my point about Holland being easier :)

3 comments

About 40% of the population (6.4M out of 17M) and about 40% of the economy. https://www.ing.nl/particulier/economisch-bureau/archief/arc...

I am not from one of the Hollands and I try to avoid using Holland but I will do so sometimes. It's a bit like using America for the United States which seems more wrong to me than using Holland for the Netherlands.

> PS The official name is "Kingdom of the Netherlands", I guess that solidifies my point about Holland being easier :)

That's kind of shifting the goalposts though. It's not like I'm introducing myself as "from the Federal Republic of Germany", either.

> That's kind of shifting the goalposts though. It's not like I'm introducing myself as "from the Federal Republic of Germany", either.

You should, just for the sake of these looks at parties.

I just saw results of some survey of Dutch people for a Dutch company and one person from Limburg (!) answered country with "Holland". Weird.