The Association of Netherlands Municipalities (Dutch: Vereniging van Nederlandse Gemeenten or VNG) was established in 1912 by 28 Dutch cities, at a time when the number of tasks delegated to municipalities saw a rapid increase. As a result of this increase, there was a greater need for information, exchange of experiences, as well as for an organisation that could represent the interests of its members at a central government level.
Its Organisation for International Co-operation, VNG International, seeks to strengthen democratic local government in the world and implements projects in more than 40 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The Netherlands, informally Holland, is a country located in northwestern Europe with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands consists of twelve provinces; it borders Germany to the east and Belgium to the south, with a North Sea coastline to the north and west. It has a border with France on the split island of Saint Martin in the Caribbean. It shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany, and Belgium. The official language is Dutch, with West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland. Dutch, English, and Papiamento are official in the Caribbean territories.
The Netherlands Antilles was a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The country consisted of several island territories located in the Caribbean Sea. The islands were also informally known as the Dutch Antilles. The country came into being in 1954 as the autonomous successor of the Dutch colony of Curaçao and Dependencies. The Antilles were dissolved in 2010. The Dutch colony of Surinam, although it was relatively close by on the continent of South America, did not become part of the Netherlands Antilles but became a separate autonomous country in 1954. All the island territories that belonged to the Netherlands Antilles remain part of the kingdom today, although the legal status of each differs. As a group they are still commonly called the Dutch Caribbean, regardless of their legal status. People from this former territory continue to be called Antilleans in the Netherlands.
The Hague is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the capital of the province of South Holland. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of the Netherlands is Amsterdam, The Hague has been described as the country's de facto capital.
There are twelve provinces of the Netherlands representing the administrative layer between the national government and the local municipalities, with responsibility for matters of subnational or regional importance.
The politics of the Netherlands take place within the framework of a parliamentary representative democracy. A constitutional monarchy, the country is organised as a decentralised unitary state. The Netherlands can be described as a consociational state. Dutch politics and governance are characterised by a common striving for broad consensus on important issues, within both of the political community and society as a whole.
Beatrix is a member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013.
As of 1 January 2023, there are 342 municipalities and three special municipalities in the Netherlands. The latter is the status of three of the six island territories that make up the Dutch Caribbean. Municipalities are the second-level administrative division, or public bodies, in the Netherlands and are subdivisions of their respective provinces. Their duties are delegated to them by the central government and they are ruled by a municipal council that is elected every four years. Municipal mergers have reduced the total number of municipalities by two-thirds since the first official boundaries were created in the mid 19th century. Municipalities themselves are informally subdivided into districts and neighbourhoods for administrative and statistical purposes.
Sint Eustatius, known locally as Statia, is an island in the Caribbean. It is a special municipality of the Netherlands.
The Dutch Language Union is an international regulatory institution that governs issues regarding the Dutch language. It is best known for its spelling reforms which are promulgated by member states, grammar books, the Green Booklet and its support of Dutch language courses and studies worldwide. It was founded on a treaty concluded between the Netherlands and Belgium on 9 September 1980. Suriname has been an associate member of the Taalunie since 2004.
The SSS islands, locally also known as the Windward Islands, is a collective term for the three territories of the Dutch Caribbean that are located within the Leeward Islands group of the Lesser Antilles. In order of population size, they are: Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius and Saba. In some contexts, the term is also used to refer to the entire island of Saint Martin, alongside Sint Eustatius and Saba.
Sint Maarten is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean. With a population of 41,486 as of January 2019 on an area of 34 km2 (13 sq mi), it encompasses the southern 44% of the divided island of Saint Martin, while the northern 56% of the island constitutes the French overseas collectivity of Saint Martin. Sint Maarten's capital is Philipsburg. Collectively, Sint Maarten and the other Dutch islands in the Caribbean are often called the Dutch Caribbean.
The Netherlands Antilles was an autonomous Caribbean country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was dissolved on 10 October 2010.
The Joint Court of Justice of Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, and of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba serves the three Caribbean countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the three Caribbean special municipalities of the Netherlands. The court primarily hears disputes in first instance and on appeal of these six islands, and is on the same level as similar courts in the Netherlands. Since 2012, the court has also been authorized to hear inquiry procedures originated on Curaçao, of a type that would be heard in the Netherlands by the Enterprise Chamber in Amsterdam.
The Kingdom of the Netherlands, commonly known simply as the Netherlands, is a sovereign state consisting of a collection of constituent territories united under the monarch of the Netherlands, who functions as head of state. The realm is not a federation; it is a unitary monarchy with its largest subdivision, the eponymous Netherlands, predominantly located in Western Europe and with several smaller island territories located in the Caribbean.
The Caribbean Netherlands is a geographic region of the Netherlands located outside of Europe, in the Caribbean, consisting of three so-called special municipalities. These are the islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, as they are also known in legislation, or the BES islands for short. The islands are officially classified as public bodies in the Netherlands and as overseas territories of the European Union; as such, European Union law does not automatically apply to them.
A common visa exists since the end of 2010 for the territories of Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten and the Caribbean Netherlands which form together the territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean. The visa is not valid for the European part of the Netherlands, which is part of the Schengen Area.
The Dutch Caribbean are the territories, colonies, and countries, former and current, of the Dutch Empire and the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean Sea. They are in the north and south-west of the Lesser Antilles archipelago.
Jan Hendrikus Cornelis van Zanen is a Dutch politician who has served as Mayor of The Hague since 1 July 2020. A member of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), he previously served as Mayor of Utrecht (2014–2020) and Amstelveen (2005–2013). Jan van Zanen also was national chairman of the VVD (2003–2008). He has been president of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) since 3 June 2015.
Jorien Wuite is a Sint Maarten-Dutch civil servant, diplomat, and politician. Born in The Hague, she moved to Sint Maarten aged 32 to work in government. She rose to the position of Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sports and served as Minister Plenipotentiary of Sint Maarten in the period 2018–19. She moved back to the European part of the Netherlands due to her election to the House of Representatives in 2021 as a member of the social liberal party Democrats 66 (D66).
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba since 10 October 2012, the effective date of legislation passed by the States General of the Netherlands enabling same-sex couples to marry.
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