The Dutch in the world

A little list of silly facts:

• New York was called Nieuw Amsterdam before sold to the British.
• Australia was called Nieuw Holland before sold to the British.
• New Zealand is named after a part of the Netherlands, Zeeland.
• In Japan there is a town where they still speak Dutch.

Less glorious may be:

• Indonesia was a Dutch colony until the sixties.
• Apartheid is a Dutch word. They speak Afrikaans in South Africa, which is a derivate of Dutch. That is because farmers from the Netherlands settled there in the 17:th Century.

In Sweden:

• The city where I live was built by the Dutch on orders of our king with Amsterdam in mind. Have a look at the maps on the right.
• In the 16:th century a Dutchman travelled through Sweden and wrote a book about the trip. Amongst other things he wrote that the women in Sweden were the most ugly he had ever seen, but that the men were extremely well built.

Maps over Amsterdam and Gothenburg

The Golden Century

In the Netherlands, the 17:th century is called the Golden century. This was the time when the Netherlands was the largest trading nation in the world in spite of the small area and population of the country, it was the time when the world's first stock exchange opened in Amsterdam, the century when intellectuals from all over the world came to the Netherlands and it's fine, open minded academies to study.
Last but not least, it was the century when the Dutch settlers in South Africa started growing wine.