joostebrood said:
Spikester, I don't have a clue. There's 2 regions in Holland: Northern Holland and Southern Holland. That's where my knowledge ends. Wikipedia probably has an answer to this.
Hmm, well you learn something new everyday:
Naming conventions
In English, '(the) Netherlands' is the official name of the European part of the 'Kingdom of the Netherlands'. 'Holland' is commonly used as a synonym for the Netherlands, but is actually a region in the central-western part of the country. The country's people and language are called 'Dutch'. 'Netherlanders' can be used for the people and 'Netherlandic' or 'Netherlands' as adjectives, but they are uncommon. In most languages, the name for the country literally means 'low lands' or is a transliteration of 'Nederland' or 'Holland'. Although this was more common in the past, the definite article does not need to be capitalised in English, not even when citing the name. For example, it is possible to write "The country is semi-officially called 'The Netherlands' [or: the 'Netherlands'], and 'Holland' is used less than in the past.", but it is more common to see "He lives in the Netherlands." with a lower case in print nowadays.
The name "Holland", or derivations of it, is commonly used for the Netherlands both in Dutch and in most other languages and can even be the official name of the country, e.g. Hoolanda (Arabic) and Oranda (Japanese). Strictly speaking, though, 'Holland' is the name of a region within the Netherlands, which was the economic powerhouse during the time of the United Provinces (1581-1795). Using 'Holland' for 'the Netherlands' is thus comparable to the use of 'England' for 'the United Kingdom'. Many Dutch people, especially those from provinces other than North Holland and South Holland, object to the use of the name of 'Holland' for the entire Netherlands.
The plural form ("Netherlands") is not commonly used in Dutch anymore, but instead a singular form of de Nederlanden: Nederland. The people are referred to as Nederlanders ("Dutch" in English) and the language is called Nederlands (again, "Dutch" in English). The plural form Nederlanden is mainly used when referring to the entire Kingdom (het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden), which includes the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba.
The English word "Dutch" is akin to the German word Deutsch and has the same etymological origin. Both these terms derive from what in Germanic was known as theodisca, which meant "(language) of the (common) people". During the early middle ages, it was the elite that mostly used Latin and the common people used their local languages. An older Dutch term for the language of the Netherlands is Diets or Nederdietsch.
I feel edjamacated now
I still prefer Flemland though...