Regional Profiles

The Netherlands is divided in twelve administrative regions or provinces. These are the provinces of: Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe, Overijssel, Gelderland, Flevoland, Utrecht, North-Holland, South-Holland, Zeeland, North-Brabant and Limburg.

The Northern Netherlands consist of the three northern most provinces of Holland: Groningen, Friesland, and Drenthe. On a map of the Netherlands, the region seems to be located in the periphery. But in the globalizing world of today, the Northern Netherlands are at the center of the Western European economy.

The province of Overijssel is located in the eastern part of the Netherlands. It consists of two different areas: the highly industrialized eastern part called Twente and the western part with the capital of the province: Zwolle. A crossroad of transport links to Scandinavia and Germany, the Overijssel region has a large manufacturing base and excellent infrastructure enabling easy communication with major Eastern European markets.

The province of Gelderland is an industrial region and home to the well-known applied research clusters: Food Valley and Health Valley. Gelderland is strategically located, closely to Europe's largest market: Germany. The province of Gelderland, the largest province of the Netherlands, has a land surface of 5,136.5 square kilometers with an average population density of 398 per square kilometer.

Flevoland is often called a 'man-made miracle'. Until 1940 this area was still part of the Zuiderzee. Gradually the Dutch reclaimed the land on the bottom of this former sea till in the beginning of the seventies of last century a surface of 1,425 square kilometers (550 square miles) of new land was realised.

The Province of Utrecht lies in the heart of the Netherlands. It is part of the 'Randstad' region; a huge delta metropolis that includes Utrecht, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. The Randstad experiences a dynamic level of economic activity that easily competes with other major metropolitan regions in Europe and elsewhere has a rich mixture of companies, and is one of the major centers of commerce in the country.

A center of the North Sea oil and gas industry, the Province of North-Holland is a base for many technology companies, and has a sizeable engineering industry supplying industrial parts and equipment. The province of North Holland is divided into two major regions: North Holland North and the Amsterdam Region.

The province of South-Holland is located in the mid-western part of the Netherlands. This province comprises the highly urbanized belts of the Rotterdam area (Rijnmond), The Hague and Leiden and some less populated parts in the center and in the east. The Rotterdam region is the region which includes the port and the industrial areas in and around Rotterdam. It is one of the major employment centers in the Netherlands.

Zeeland is located in the southwest of the Netherlands. It is criss-crossed by the Ooster- en Westerschelde estuaries. To the west is the North Sea; to the north, the province of South-Holland; Noord-Brabant is to its east and Belgium is to the south.

The province of North-Brabant covers 5,000 square kilometers (2,000 square miles), and accounts for 14,8% (2,4 million) of the total Dutch population. Den Bosch is the capital of Noord-Brabant; other major urban regions are Eindhoven, Helmond, Tilburg and Breda.

Limburg, the most southern province of the Netherlands, accounts with 1.13 million inhabitants for 7% of total Dutch population. Limburg has a land surface of 2,200 square km (850 square miles) with an average population density of 526 inhabitants per square km.