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Nonsense. For all international intents and purposes, Holland and Netherlands are the same thing. The fact that "Holland" originally refers to only a part of the country is really off the mark when talking to foreigners; many languages don't even have a word for "the Netherlands" and simply call it something that sounds like "Holland" (e.g. Polish, Icelandic, Malay, etc). Or, more often, there is an official word for "The Netherlands", such as "Alankomaat" or "PaĆ­ses Bajos", but nobody ever uses it, often does not even understand the word.

I really wish my fellow countrymen would stop this nomenclature chauvinism. It's really just a symptom of an inferiority complex from the less populated regions of the country (traditional "Holland" roughly coincides with where the major cities are). Get over it already.

(disclaimer: I've always lived outside traditional "Holland" myself)



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