Nederlanden

Nederlanden, literally “the low lands” in Dutch, is a historical and geographical name for the Low Countries along the North Sea coast of Western Europe. The term traditionally encompasses the coastal plains and river basins that lie below or near sea level in present-day Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, and in earlier periods extended into parts of northern France and western Germany. In the Late Middle Ages the region was united as the Seventeen Provinces under Burgundian and later Habsburg rule, including Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Overijssel, Gelderland, Brabant, Flanders, Artois, Namur, Luxembourg and others.

After the Dutch Revolt, the northern provinces formed the independent Republic of the Seven United Netherlands in 1648, while the southern provinces remained under Habsburg Spanish and later Austrian rule. In the 1830s Belgium achieved independence from the Netherlands, and Luxembourg's dynastic ties with the Netherlands ended in 1890, after which it remained a separate Grand Duchy. Thus the political unit known as the Netherlands today is only part of the broader historical Nederlanden.

In modern usage the term persists primarily in historical and scholarly contexts as a reference to the Low Countries as a whole, rather than to the present-day Netherlands alone. The region is notable for its early commercial ties, urban networks, and artistic and scientific developments that shaped European history.