[skrebbel]

Yeah, it's nuts. Every region and a half in the Netherlands that specializes in something calls themselves "something something valley".

That said I was once in Silicon Valley and there were hills on the left and water on the right. Not really much of a valley either.

[evgen]

And if you looked past the water you would have seen the hills on the other side. The 'valley' is between hills on either side of the bay.

[russellbeattie]

The hills in the Bay Area range from 350m to 1300m, so they're not huge, but drive/hike up over them and they definitely feel mountainous. The "Valley" can best be seen from Skyline Blvd running along the peaks to the west: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/San_Jose...

[tomsmeding]

I live in the Netherlands, and I've never heard anything like that before. I live in The Hague, maybe it's a regional thing?

[sytse]

I used to live in the Netherlands and I'm writing this from Utrecht. The valleys are regional:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Valley in Wageningen

2. https://www.healthvalley.nl/ in Nijmegen

3. http://www.metalvalley.eu/nl/home in Brabant

4. https://www.immunovalley.nl/ in Utrecht

5. https://legalvalleynederland.nl/ in Arnhem

6. https://www.energyvalley.nl/ in the northern provinces

If you like partying you can always go to: https://dancevalley.com/

[skrebbel]

The pattern is so overused that organizations that never even tried to amount to something adopted it. Eg I was once at an event organized by "DSP Valley", which was never more than someone behind a desk organizing a few (mediocre) networking events: https://www.hightechcampus.nl/bedrijven/dsp-valley.

[Aeolun]

Coming back to the Netherlands from abroad it often feels like they’re pretty good at coming up with what I would consider fairly cringeworthy names.

[skrebbel]

Yep! I myself live and work in the area (Eindhoven) that willingly calls itself "Brainport". I hear the word almost daily for ten years and I still cringe.