Als ik zelf niets kan bedenken maak ik wel eens gebruik van onderstaand lijstje, leuke weetje over Nederland. Heb dit geplukt uit het Nederlands gedeelte van het Postcrossings Forum.
When dutch highschool kids have passed their exams, their schoolbag will be hung out of the window as a flag
The name ‘Holland’ is wrong, that is only one part (2 provinces). The real name is the Netherlands. The country isn’t officially called Holland anymore since the 17th century, when the lands that are now Brabant, Gelderland, Overijssel and Utrecht we’re added to the official boundaries.
There are around 18 million bicycles in Holland, which supposedly means one for every inhabitant.
Holland has the highest museum density in the world, with almost 1000 museums.
The landscape of Holland is dotted with windmills, which have become its hallmark.
Holland is 6.7 meters below sea level, at its lowest point, which is a polder near Rotterdam.
Amsterdam has 1,281 bridges
The Van Gogh collections in the Van Gogh Museum and the Kröller-Müller Museum are the largest in the world.
The Dutch people are the tallest in all Europe and second tallest in the world.(and the best looking)
The world famous Koh-I-Noor diamond was cut in Amsterdam
Amsterdam has 70 glass-topped canal boats.
Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands, but The Hague is the seat of government.
Dutch is also spoken in Belgium, northern France, Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba.
There are 1048 windmills and 108 watermills in the Netherlands.
Gin was invented in the Netherlands under the name Jenever. It was first sold a a medicine in the 17th centre.
Keukenhof Park is the largest flower garden in de the world.
When you land at Schiphol Airport, you are actually four meters below sea level.
Witness how Holland wages war against the sea all the time, visit Neeltje Jan’s in Zeeland and see for yourself.
The story of the boy who stuck his finger in the hole in the Dyke to stop Netherlands from flooding.
Amsterdam has over 300 coffee shops which can legally sell up to 5 grams of soft drugs to each person.
75% of the entire worlds flower bulb production comes from Netherlands
Over 70% of the worlds bacon (poor pigs) comes from the Netherlands
The International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court are both in The Hague.
Holland has over 15,000 km of bicycle lanes.
Flevoland, the Netherlands twelfth province was reclaimed from the south sea which started in 1986.
Amsterdam is built entirely on piles, huge stakes driven into the ground. Central station has 6000 of them keeping it up.
The name Amsterdam comes from the combination of the river Amstel and the Dam that was built on it in order to found the original village know today as Amsterdam.
You might know the name Amstel as the name of a beer which was also named after the river because it was brews locally.
Holland always has a coalition government, so it’s a country of compromise and tolerance.
Our flag is red-white-blue. Orange stands for the house of Orange, which is one of the names of our royalty.
It’s a Dutch tradition: we skate on natural ice as soon as the weather permits. With all the warm winters in past years, most of us haven’t skated for a while either. Below a video of people ice-skating in the winter of 2008. You can see seasoned skaters as well as kids.
75% of Dutch women work part time. This is the highest figure in Europe: the average is 32%. (2008)
The population of the Netherlands is nearly 16.5 million people (2008). Twice as much as the city of New York (2007).
During the 17th century Holland was the only European country doing business with the oriental (China, Japan, Indonesia and some parts of what is now Malaysia and Taiwan) foreign countries therefore kept on calling the country 'Holland" to avoid confusion. However, 3 century’s later, it only is causing more confusion.