Netherlands

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The **Netherlands** was a human nation located in Western Europe on Earth in the Sol System. It was bordered by Germany and Belgium. The Netherlands also controlled several small overseas provinces in the Caribbean.

During the Middle Ages, the descendants of the Carolingian dynasty came to dominate the area that became the Netherlands and then extended their rule to a large part of Western Europe. The region corresponding to the Netherlands therefore became part of Lower Lotharingia within the Frankish Holy Roman Empire.

By 1433, the Duke of Burgundy had assumed control over most of the lowlands territories in Lower Lotharingia; he created the Burgundian Netherlands which included what eventually became the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and a part of France.

The Catholic kings of Spain took strong measures against Protestantism, which polarised the peoples of present-day Belgium and the Netherlands. The subsequent Dutch revolt led to the splitting in 1581 of the Burgundian Netherlands into a Catholic, French- and Dutch-speaking "Spanish Netherlands" (approximately corresponding to Belgium and Luxembourg), and a northern "United Provinces" (or "Dutch Republic)", which spoke Dutch and was predominantly Protestant. The latter entity became the Netherlands.

In the Dutch Golden Age, which had its zenith around 1667, there was a flowering of trade, industry, and the sciences. A rich worldwide Dutch empire developed and the Dutch East India Company became one of the earliest and most important of national mercantile companies based on war, entrepreneurship and trade.

During the 18th century, the power, wealth and influence of the Netherlands declined. A series of wars with the more powerful British and French empires weakened it.

During the Napoleonic era, Napoleon made the Netherlands a satellite state, the Kingdom of Holland (1806–1810), which was later converted to a French imperial province.

After the collapse of Napoleon in 1813–15, an expanded "United Kingdom of the Netherlands" was created with the House of Orange as monarchs, also ruling Belgium and Luxembourg. The King imposed unpopular Protestant reforms on Belgium, which revolted in 1830 and became independent in 1839. After an initially conservative period, following the introduction of the 1848 constitution, the country became a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarch. Luxembourg became officially independent from the Netherlands in 1839, but a personal union remained until 1890.

In 1900, the Netherlands successfully launched a manned orbital spaceflight from a spaceport established in the Dutch East Indies.

The Netherlands remained neutral and was not attacked during the Great War between 1914 and 1916. However, the post-Great War global economic depression greatly suppressed Dutch economic growth for several decades after 1916. In addition, the Netherlands quickly became overwhelmed by millions of refugees from war-devastated parts of Europe, further straining limited government budgets. After the war, pro-independence movements in the colonial empires of Great Britain and France also spread to the empires of other European nations including the Netherlands. After an unsuccessful military campaign against revolutionary groups in the Dutch East Indies, the Dutch government eventually accepted the independence of its former Asian colony as the Republic of Indonesia in 1926.

In 1919, the Netherlands became a founding member of the League of Nations. The Netherlands was also a founding member of the European Union in 1951.

In 1968 the European Union was merged with the Commonwealth of Nations to form the United Commonwealth.

The government of the United Commonwealth federalised in 1988. The Dutch government was therefore effectively absorbed into the United Commonwealth Government in 1988, and the Netherlands is largely regarded to have ceased to exist as a separate nation-state on that date.