Geography of the Netherlands

thumb|200px|right|Map of the Netherlands in Europe

thumb|200px|right|Relief map of the Netherlands in Europe

The geography of the European Netherlands is unusual in that much of its land has been reclaimed from the sea and is below sea level, protected by dikes. It is a small country with a total area of and ranked 131st. With a population of 17.4 million and density of makes it the second most densely populated member of the European Union after Malta, and the 12th most densely populated country in the world, behind only three countries with a population over 16 million. Consequently, the Netherlands is highly urbanized, concentrated in the so-called Randstad which makes up 20% of the land area but almost half of the total population. For transformation to and from geographical coordinates there is an official procedure RDNAPTRANS and approximate as well as precise tools available. The west–east coordinate is between 0 and 280 km, and the south–north coordinate between 300 and 620 km.

The central point is the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwentoren (Our Lady's Tower) in Amersfoort, with RD coordinates (155,000.00, 463,000.00 m) and geographic coordinates approximately .

Area: The rest of the country is mostly flat; only in the extreme south of the country does the land rise to any significant extent, in the foothills of the Ardennes mountains. This is where Vaalserberg is located, the highest point on the European part of the Netherlands at  above sea level. The highest point of the entire country is Mount Scenery (870 metres or 2,854 ft), which is located outside the European part of the Netherlands, on the island of Saba in the Caribbean.

thumb|[[List of national parks of the Netherlands|National parks in the Netherlands]]

The Netherlands is located at mouths of three major European rivers (Rhine, Maas or Meuse, and Scheldt).

In November 2016, the Netherlands and Belgium agreed to cede small, uninhabited parcels of land to reflect a change in course of the river Meuse (or Maas, in Dutch). The land swap is to take effect as of 2018.

Urbanization

The Netherlands does not have a single large metropolis, but the four largest cities are concentrated in the western provinces of North Holland, South Holland, and Utrecht. Between and around these lies a ring of medium-sized towns, which together form the so-called Randstad. About 45% of the Dutch population is concentrated here in this small area (makes up 20% of the total land), around a relatively open space, the so-called Groene Hart (Green Heart). This area is highly densely populated with over 1000 inhabitants per km2. The rest of the country is much less dense. Between 70-85% of the Netherlands total land area is described as rural (Dutch: platteland, landelijk).

Largest cities

With their provinces in November 2019:

{| class="wikitable"

!Province

!Groningen

!Friesland

!Drenthe

!Overijssel

!Flevoland

!Gelderland

!Utrecht

!North-Holland

!South-Holland

!Zeeland

!North-Brabant

!Limburg

!Total Netherlands

|Nature

|5,3%

|5,6%

|24,4%

|18,2%

|9,7%

|25,4%

|18,1%

|5,6%

|8,7%

|6,9%

|21,0%

|22,2%

|14,1%

|Water and coast

|22,4%

|45,1%

|1,4%

|3,1%

|41,4%

|3,5%

|5,3%

|38,5%

|20,9%

|40,9%

|3,5%

|2,7%

|20,1%

|Agricultural

|55,6%

|39,4%

|55,7%

|56,9%

|37,0%

|45,5%

|32,2%

|37,5%

|40,7%

|46,5%

|44,5%

|44,2%

|Built-up

|16,7%

|9,9%

|18,4%

|21,9%

|12,0%

|25,7%

|31,2%

|23,8%

|32,8%

|11,6%

|29,1%

|30,6%

|21,5%

{| class="wikitable"

! colspan="14" |Broken down (with surface area (km2))

!Province

!Groningen

!Friesland

!Drenthe

!Overijssel

!Flevoland

!Gelderland

!Utrecht

!North-Holland

!South-Holland

!Zeeland

!North-Brabant

!Limburg

!Total Netherlands

|Forest

|2,1% (61 km2)

|2,1% (122 km2)

|12,5% (336 km2)

|10,6% (361 km2)

|5,6% (136 km2)

|17,6% (905 km2)

|11,9% (185 km2)

|3,2% (131 km2)

|2,8% (94 km2)

|1,5% (45 km2)

|13,1% (667 km2)

|14,7% (324 km2)

|8,1% (3367 km2)

|Open nature

|2,2% (66 km2)

|1,9% (112 km2)

|7,5% (202 km2)

|4,7% (161 km2)

|3,1% (74 km2)

|7,1% (366 km2)

|5,3% (83 km2)

|1,7% (68 km2)

|4,3% (143 km2)

|5,1% (149 km2)

|5,9% (299 km2)

|5,9% (130 km2)

|4,5% (1853 km2)

|Wet areas

|1,0% (30 km2)

|1,6% (91 km2)

|4,3% (115 km2)

|2,9% (100 km2)

|1,0% (23 km2)

|0,6% (32 km2)

|0,9% (14 km2)

|0,7% (29 km2)

|1,6% (52 km2)

|0,2% (7 km2)

|1,9% (99 km2)

|1,7% (37 km2)

|1,5% (629 km2)

|Dunes and beaches

|1,2% (36 km2)

|3,1% (177 km2)

|0,0% (0 km2)

|0.0% (0 km2)

|3,3% (136 km2)

|2,2% (73 km2)

|2,1% (62 km2)

|0,0% (1 km2)

|0.0% (0 km2)

|1,2% (485 km2)

|Water

|21,2% (627 km2)

|42,1% (2420 km2)

|1,4% (38 km2)

|3,1% (105 km2)

|41,4% (998 km2)

|3,5% (181 km2)

|5,3% (83 km2)

|35,2% (1439 km2)

|18,7% (619 km2)

|38,8% (1137 km2)

|3,4% (175 km2)

|2,7% (59 km2)

|19,0% (7880 km2)

|Arable farming

|33,3% (983 km2)

|7,1% (409 km2)

|31,2% (835 km2)

|15,0% (513 km2)

|31,1% (749 km2)

|14,0% (720 km2)

|6,6% (103 km2)

|13,7% (560 km2)

|14,6% (483 km2)

|32,6% (957 km2)

|27,0% (1370 km2)

|29,4% (649 km2)

|20,0% (8328 km2)

|Grassland

|22,3% (659 km2)

|32,2% (1853 km2)

|24,4% (655 km2)

|41,8% (1429 km2)

|5,7% (137 km2)

|31,2% (1601 km2)

|38,7% (604 km2)

|17,9% (731 km2)

|20,4% (676 km2)

|7,9% (231 km2)

|18,9% (961 km2)

|14,3% (315 km2)

|23,7% (9851 km2)

|Intensive horticulture

|0,0% (1 km2)

|0,0% (2 km2)

|0,1% (4 km2)

|0,1% (3 km2)

|0,2% (6 km2)

|0,3% (15 km2)

|0,2% (3 km2)

|0,6% (26 km2)

|2,5% (83 km2)

|0,2% (5 km2)

|0,6% (31 km2)

|0,9% (19 km2)

|0,5% (198 km2)

|Living, economy and infrastructure

|14,5% (429 km2)

|9,1% (524 km2)

|16,9% (452 km2)

|20,3% (695 km2)

|9,9% (238 km2)

|23,1% (1186 km2)

|27,9% (436 km2)

|20,7% (845 km2)

|28,5% (942 km2)

|10,5% (307 km2)

|26,3% (1338 km2)

|28,6% (632 km2)

|19,3% (8023 km2)

|Public green areas

|2,2% (64 km2)

|0,7% (43 km2)

|1,6% (42 km2)

|1,6% (54 km2)

|2,2% (52 km2)

|2,6% (132 km2)

|3,3% (51 km2)

|3,1% (127 km2)

|4,3% (143 km2)

|1,2% (34 km2)

|2,8% (141 km2)

|2,0% (45 km2)

|2,2% (927 km2)

Climate

The predominant wind direction in the European Netherlands is southwest, which causes a mild maritime climate, with moderately warm summers and cool winters, and typically high humidity. This is especially true close to the Dutch coastline, where the difference in temperature between summer and winter, as well as between day and night is noticeably smaller than it is in the southeast of the country.

Ice days—maximum temperature below —usually occur from December until February, with the occasional rare ice day prior to or after that period. Freezing days—minimum temperature below —occur much more often, usually ranging from mid-November to late March, but not rarely measured as early as mid-October and as late as mid-May. If one chooses the height of measurement to be above ground instead of , one may even find such temperatures in the middle of the summer. On average, snow can occur from November to April but sometimes occurs in May or October too.

Warm days—maximum temperature above —are usually found in April to October, but in some parts of the country these warm days can also occur in March, or even sometimes in November or February (usually not in , however). Summer days—maximum temperature above —are usually measured in from May until September, tropical days—maximum temperature above —are rare and usually occur only in June to August.

Precipitation throughout the year is distributed relatively equally each month. Summer and autumn months tend to gather a little more precipitation than the other months, mainly because of the intensity of the rainfall rather than the frequency of rain days (this is especially the case in summer when lightning is also much more frequent).

The number of sunshine hours is affected by the fact that because of the geographical latitude, the length of the days varies between barely eight hours in December and nearly 17 hours in June.

The following table is based on mean measurements by the KNMI weather station in De Bilt between 1991 and 2020. The highest recorded temperature was , reached on 25 July 2019 in Gilze-Rijen. The lowest temperature in the Netherlands was recorded at Winterswijk on 27 January 1942, when the temperature dropped to .

Geography of the Netherlands

Urbanization

Largest cities

Climate

See also

References