Provinces of the Netherlands
first-level administrative division in the Netherlands
There are twelve provinces (Dutch: provincies [proːˈvɪnsis] or provinciën [proːˈvɪnsijə(n)] ; sing. provincie [ˌproːˈvɪnsi] ) of the Netherlands representing the administrative layer between the national government and the local governments, with responsibility for matters of subnational or regional importance.
The most populous province is South Holland, with just over 3.8 million inhabitants as of January 2023, and also the most densely populated province with 1,410/km2 (3,700/sq mi). With 391,124 inhabitants, Zeeland has the smallest population. However, Drenthe is the least densely populated province with 191/km2 (490/sq mi). In terms of area, Friesland is the largest province with a total area of 5,753 km2 (2,221 sq mi). If water is excluded, Gelderland is the largest province by land area at 4,960 km2 (1,915 sq mi). The province of Utrecht is the smallest with a total area of 1,560 km2 (602 sq mi), while Flevoland is the smallest by land area at 1,410 km2 (544 sq mi). In total about 10,000 people were employed by the provincial administrations in 2018.
The provinces of the Netherlands are joined in the Association of Provinces of the Netherlands (IPO).
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This entry incorporates text from “Provinces of the Netherlands” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.