Ethnic groups: Predominantly Dutch; largest minority communities are Moroccans, Turks, Surinamese.

The Dutch are primarily of Germanic stock with some Gallo-Celtic mixture. Their small homeland frequently has been threatened with destruction by the North Sea and has often been invaded by the great European powers.

If you walk through cities in the west of the Netherlands, you tend to think the Dutch are a cosmopolitan people. In the rural areas, however you can easily distinguish local differences. In the North, you'll still mostly see the silent blue-eyed, blond types, whereas in the South people tend to be shorter darker and more talkative.

At primary school children used to learn: people above the great rivers that split the country in two are mostly Protestant; the southern part is dominantly Catholic. But these differences have greatly faded away. To the trained ear there are some differences in pronunciation between the different regions and the Frisians even have a language of their own.

The Dutch do appreciate foreign attempts to speak their language, but proud as they are on their alleged linguistic skills, they usually switch to some sort of English, French or German quite fast.

The official language is Dutch, which is spoken by practically all inhabitants. Another official language is Frisian, which is spoken in the northern province of Friesland and has a strong resemblance to English. Frisian is co-official only in the province of Friesland, although with a few restrictions. Several dialects of Low Saxon are spoken in much of the north and are recognised as regional languages, as protected by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. To the south, the Dutch language shifts into other varieties of Low Franconian and German, which may or may not be best classified as Dutch, most notably West Flemish. One of these, Limburgish, which is spoken in the southeastern province of Limburg has been recognised as a minority language since 1977.

The Reformation was particularly succesful in the Netherlands and produced a great number of Calvinists, particularly in the ruling class, but at the end of the Eighty Years' War that formed the Netherlands, the people had already returned to Catholicism as a result of the Counter-Reformation.

The Netherlands was home to some of the earliest founders of the Mennonite/Anabaptist movement. Menno Simons, after whom the church is named, was a priest in Friesland who converted to Anabaptism. While he didn't 'found' the Mennonite church, his early organising efforts led to its adherants being named after him. The Netherlands is today home to one of Europe's largest Mennonite populations.

According to the governmental statistics agency (CBS) 30% of the population consider themselves to be Roman Catholic, 20% Protestant (predominantly Dutch Reformed) and 8% 'other denominations'. 42% consider themselves not to belong to any religious denomination. Church attendance however is much lower than these figures may suggest: some 70% of the population 'rarely or never' visit a house of worship (be it a church, mosque, synagogue or temple).

The largest part of the 'other denominations', at 920,000, are Muslim immigrant workers, mostly from Morocco and Turkey, and their offspring. The other denominations also include some 200,000 (1.3%) Hindu, mostly descendents of indentured servants who migrated from India to the former Dutch colony of Surinam around 1900. Prior to the Holocaust about 140,000 Jews lived in the Netherlands, however the vast majority of Dutch Jewry was murdered in the Holocaust. About 30,000 Dutch Jews now live in The Netherlands.

The Netherlands has had many well-known painters. The 17th century, when the Dutch republic was prosperous, was the age of the "Dutch Masters" such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, Jan Steen and many others. Famous Dutch painters of the 19th and 20th century are Vincent van Gogh and Piet Mondriaan. M. C. Escher is a well-known graphics artist. Willem de Kooning was born and trained in Rotterdam, although he is considered to have reached acclaim as an American artist. A (in)famous Dutch master art forger is Han van Meegeren.

The Netherlands is the country of philosophers Erasmus of Rotterdam and Spinoza, and all of Descartes' major work was done there. Christiaan Huygens(1629-1695) is a famous astronomer and mathematician. He discovered Saturn's moon Titan and invented an accurate clock.

In the Dutch Golden Age, literature flowered as well, with Joost van den Vondel and P. C. Hooft as the two most famous writers. In the 19th century, Multatuli wrote about the bad treatment of the natives in Dutch colonies. Important 20th century authors include Harry Mulisch, Jan Wolkers, Simon Vestdijk, Cees Nooteboom, Gerard van het Reve and Willem Frederik Hermans. The Diary of Anne Frank was also written in the Netherlands.

See also: List of museums in The Netherlands, Sport in the Netherlands, Music of the Netherlands, List of Dutch people, Public holidays in the Netherlands.

Replicas of Dutch buildings can be found in Huis ten Bosch, Nagasaki, Japan. A similar Holland Village is being built in Shenyang, China.

Windmills, tulips, wooden shoes, cheese and Delftware pottery are among the numerous items associated with the Netherlands.

Dutch policies on recreational drugs, prostitution, same-sex marriage and euthanasia are among the most liberal in the world.