page_title: Terminology of the Low Countries
section_title: Netherlands
hierarchical_section_title: Terminology of the Low Countries / Names from low-lying geographical features / Netherlands
caption_attribution_description: English: The Low Countries in 1786 with the Southern Netherlands highlighted.
context_page_description: The Low Countries comprise the coastal Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta region in Western Europe, whose definition usually includes the modern countries of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Both Belgium and the Netherlands derived their names from earlier names for the region, due to nether meaning "low" and Belgica being the Latinized name for all the Low Countries, a nomenclature that went obsolete after Belgium's secession in 1830.
  The Low Countries—and the Netherlands and Belgium—had in their history exceptionally many and widely varying names, resulting in equally varying names in different languages. There is diversity even within languages: the use of one word for the country and another for the adjective form is common. This holds for English, where Dutch is the adjective form for the country "the Netherlands". Moreover, many languages have the same word for both the country of the Netherlands and the region of the Low Countries, e.g., French and Spanish.
context_section_description: Pays d'embas and later Les Pays-Bas was translated as Neder-landen in contemporary Dutch official documents. From the mid-sixteenth century on, this became a commonly used name and lost its specific meaning of a low-lying land as opposed to a high-lying land. But the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) divided the Low Countries into the northern Dutch Republic (Latin: Belgica Foederata) and the southern Spanish Netherlands (Latin: Belgica Regia), introducing a distinction, i.e. Northern vs. Southern Netherlands, the latter being roughly present-day Belgium. Nederlands, as a name for the language, was first attested in a work printed at Gouda in 1482. Since the 15th century it slowly replaced the Dutch autonym Diets and Duyts.
  The English adjective "Netherlandish", meaning "from the Low Countries", derived directly from the Dutch adjective Nederlands. It is typically used in reference to paintings or music produced anywhere in the Low Countries during the 15th and early 16th century, which are collectively called Early Netherlandish painting (Dutch: Vlaamse primitieven, "Flemish primitives" — also common in English before the mid 20th century), or (regarding music) the Netherlandish School. Later art and artists from the southern Catholic provinces of the Low Countries are usually called Flemish and those from the northern Protestant provinces Dutch, but art historians sometimes use "Netherlandish art" for art of the Low Countries produced before 1830, i.e., until the secession of Belgium from the Netherlands.
  Apart from its use to describe paintings, it is as adjective not common in English. Many languages however, do have a cognate or calque derived from the Dutch adjective Nederlands:
  Afrikaans: Nederlands
  Basque: Neerlandera
  Bulgarian: Нидерландски (Niderlandski)
  Catalan/Valencian: neerlandès
  Danish: nederlandsk
  English: Netherlandic, Netherlandish
  Esperanto: Nederlanda
  French: néerlandais
  Galician: neerlandés
  German: Niederländisch
  Interlingua: nederlandese
  Italian: ne(d)erlandese
  Korean: 네덜란드어 (Nedeollandeueo)
  Latin: nederlandiensis
  Latvian: nīderlandiešu valoda
  Low Saxon: Nederlannsch
  Norwegian: Nederlandsk
  Polish: niderlandzki
  Portuguese: neerlandês
  Romanian: neerlandeză
  Russian: Нидерландский (Niderlandskij)
  Sinhala: නෙදර්ලන්තය (Nedarlanthaya)
  Spanish: neerlandés
  Swedish: nederländska
  Ukrainian: нідерландська (niderlandska)
  West Frisian: Nederlânsk
  Toponyms:
  Burgundian Netherlands: Low Countries' provinces held by the House of Valois-Burgundy (1384–1482)
  Habsburg Netherlands: Low Countries' provinces held by the House of Habsburg and later the Spanish Empire (1482–1581)
  Seven United Netherlands: Dutch Republic (1581–1795)
  Southern Netherlands: comprising present Belgium, Luxembourg and parts of northern France (1579–1794)
  Spanish Netherlands: comprising present Belgium, Luxembourg and parts of northern France (1579–1713)
  Austrian Netherlands: comprising present Belgium, Luxembourg and parts of northern France under Habsburg rule (after 1713)
  Sovereign Principality of the United Netherlands: short-lived precursor of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1813–1815)
  United Kingdom of the Netherlands: unification of the Northern Netherlands and the Southern Netherlands (Belgium and Luxembourg) (1815–1830)
  Kingdom of the Netherlands: kingdom with the Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten as constituent countries
  Netherlands: European part of the kingdom of the Netherlands
  New Netherland: Former Dutch colony established in 1625 centred on New Amsterdam (the modern New York City)
caption: The Low Countries in 1786 with the Austrian Netherlands highlighted
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