Welcome to the Great Nation of Holland, where the tulips grow, the windmills turn, the breakfast is chocolatey, the people industrious, and the sea tries to drown at all.

Except this country isn't Holland. It's time for the difference between Holland, the Netherlands and a whole lot more.

The correct name for this tulip growing, windmill building, Hagelslag eating, container ship moving, ocean conquering nation is the Netherlands.

But confusion is understandable the

general region has been renamed a lot over a thousand years including as the dutch republic the united states of belgium and the kingdom of holland but it's not just history that makes this country's name confusing because the netherlands is divided into 12 provinces Kroningen, Drenthe, Oferhensel, Helderland, Limburg, Nord-Brabont, Zeeland, which, by the way, is the Zeeland that makes this Zeeland new. Friesland, with adorable little hearts on its flags, Flaverland, Utrecht, and here's the confusion, Nord, North Holland and Zard, South Holland. These provinces make calling the Netherlands Holland like calling the United States Dakota. Though unlike the Dakotas, which are mostly empty, save for the occasional jackaloupe, the two Hollands are the most populated provinces and have some of the biggest attractions like Amsterdam and Kokenhof. Chances are, if it's Dutch, and you've heard of it, it's in one of the Hollands. Even the government's travel website for the country is Holland.com.com officially because it sounds friendlier but

unofficially it's probably what people are actually searching for

confusion continues because people who live in the hollands are called

hollanders but all citizens of the netherlands are called dutch as is their language

but in dutch they say nederlands spreckind nederlanders in nederland which

sounds like they'd rather we call them Netherlands, speaking Netherlandish.

Meanwhile, next door in Germany, they're Deutsche Spreken Deutsch in Deutschland, which sounds like they'd rather be called Dutch.

This linguistic confusion is why Americans call the Pennsylvania Dutch Dutch, even though they're Germans.

To review, this country is the Netherlands, its people are Dutch, and they speak Dutch.

There is no country called Holland, but there are provinces of North and South Holland. Got it? Great, because it's about to get more complicated. The Netherlands is part of a kingdom with the same name, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which is headed by the Dutch royal family. The Kingdom of the Netherlands contains three more countries, and to find them we must sail from the icy North Sea to the Caribbean and Aruba, Curricot and St. Martin. These are no territories but self-governing

countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and as such they have their own governments

and their own currencies. Geography Geek side note here. While Aruba and Curricow are

islands, St. Martin is just the southern half of a tiny island also named St. Martin,

the other half of which is occupied by France and also named St. Martin, the other half of which is occupied by France, and also named St. Martin.

So despite being separated by Belgium on the European map, the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the French Republic share a border on the other side of the world on an island so nice they named it thrice.

But why does the Kingdom of the Netherlands reach to the Caribbean anyway? Because empire.

In the 1600s, the Dutch, always

looking to expand business, laid their hands on every valuable port they could. For a time,

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