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Low countries
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{{History Benelux states}}
The '''Low Countries''', the historical region of ''de Nederlanden'', are the
country countries on low-lying land around the
river delta delta of the
Rhine,
Scheldt, and
Meuse River Meuse (Maas) rivers. The term is not particularly current in modern contexts because the region does not very exactly correspond with the
sovereignty sovereign states of
The Netherlands,
Belgium and
Luxembourg, for which an alternate term, the
Benelux was applied after
World War II.
Before
early modern nation building, the Low Countries referred to a wide area of northern Europe roughly stretching from
Dunkirk, France Dunkirk at its southwestern point to the area of
Schleswig-Holstein at its northeastern point, from the
estuary of the
Scheldt in the south to
Frisia in the north. The Low Countries were the scene of the early northern towns, built from scratch rather than developed from ancient centres, that mark the reawakening of Europe in the
12th century.
A collection of several regions rather than one homogeneous region, all of the low countries still shared a great number of similarities.
* Most were coastal regions bounded by the
North Sea or the
English Channel. The countries not having access to the sea politically and economically linked to the ones that had so as to form one union of port and
hinterland. A poetic description also calls the region "the Low Countries by the Sea"
* Most spoke the medieval
Dietsch or middle-Dutch: a medeival Germanic language spokoen by the common people in what would later become the Low countries and much of Germany. However some regions, such as the
Bishopric of Liège or the
Walloon Flanders around
Cambrai,
Lille,
Mons and
Namur (province) Namur, where French was the dominant language are often considered as part of the Low Countries as well.
* Most of them depended on a lord or count in name only, the cities effectively being ruled by guilds and councils and although in theory part of a kingdom, their interaction with their rulers was regulated by a strict set of liberties describing what the latter could and could not expect from them.
* All of them depended on trade and manufacturing and encouraging the free flow of goods and craftsmen.
Of particular importance for the cities was the manufacture and trade of woollen cloth, Europe's first industry. Cities that grew around this trade included
Liège (city) Liège,
Leuven,
Mechelen,
Antwerp,
Brussels,
Ypres,
Ghent and
Utrecht (city) Utrecht, to employ a list compiled by
Henri Pirenne.
Image:Benelux satellite image.PNG thumb|150px|left|Satellite image of the Low Countries
In
1477 the
Burgundy Burgundian holdings in the area, the ''
Burgundian Netherlands'' passed through an heiress
Mary of Burgundy to the
Habsburgs. In the following century the "Low Countries" corresponded roughly to the
Seventeen Provinces covered by the
Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 of
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, which freed the provinces from their archaic feudal obligations. After the Seventeen Provinces declared their independence from
Habsburg Spain, the provinces of the
Southern Netherlands were recaptured (
1581) and are sometimes called the ''
Spanish Netherlands''.
In
1713, under the
Treaty of Utrecht following the
War of the Spanish Succession, what was left of the Spanish Netherlands was ceded to
Austria and thus became known as the
Austrian Netherlands. The
United Kingdom of the Netherlands (
1815-
1830) temporarily united the Low Countries again.
In English, the plural form
Netherlands is used for the present-day country, but in Dutch that plural has been dropped, with the pleasant side-effect that one can thus distinguish between the older, larger Netherlands and the current country. So ''Nederland'' (singular) is used for the modern nation and ''de Nederlanden'' (plural) for the domains of Charles V. However, the plural term "Koninkrijk der Nederlanden" (Kingdom of the Netherlands) still is the official Dutch name of the country.
See also
*
The Netherlands (disambiguation)
Category:Benelux countries
da:Nederlandene
he:×?רצות השפלה
nl:Lage Landen
no:Nederlandene
nn:Nederlanda
pl:Niderlandy
see
Low Countries
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