What is the largest minority in the Netherlands?
Ethnic groups
A share of 17.3 percent have an Asian background. In 2022, most immigrants had a background in (former) Soviet Union: 120,545 persons. The majority of 62.7 percent were women. Persons with a background from Ukraine, Poland, Syria, Turkey and India also immigrated to the Netherlands relatively often in 2022.
What is the racial mix of the Netherlands? Over 80% of the population of the Netherlands is white. Most of these are ethnic Dutch. However, many other people in the country come from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is in North Holland, which also has large cities Haarlem and Zaanstad. Amsterdam is situated in the heart of Randstad in the western Netherlands, a region that has a population of more than 8 million, making up about 50% of the entire Netherlands population.
The Netherlands has a population of approximately 16,715,999. Of the total population, it is estimated that there are 2.46 migrants per 1,000 inhabitants [2]. Ethnic Dutch make up 80.7% of the population, people of Turkish descent account for 2.2% of the population, and Moroccan descent 2%.
Dutch 75.4%, EU (excluding Dutch) 6.4%, Turkish 2.4%, Moroccan 2.4%, Surinamese 2.1%, Indonesian 2%, other 9.3% (2021 est.)
From 1667 to 1975, Suriname was a colony of the Netherlands. Migration began during the colonial era. Initially this was mainly the colonial elite but expanded during the 1920s and 1930s to the less fortunate inhabitants looking for better education, employment or other opportunities.
Germans with swarthy or darker complexions were called "Black Dutch" (or Schwarze Deutsche or "black German"). According to James Pylant, who studied families claiming "Black Dutch" as part of their heritage: "There are strong indications that the original "Black Dutch" were swarthy-complexioned Germans.
They form the largest ethnic minority group in the country; thus, the Turks are the second-largest ethnic group in the Netherlands after the ethnic Dutch.
Wealthiest municipalities are Bloemendaal and Laren
The data shows that most millionaire households live in Bloemendaal or Laren - this is largely unsurprising, as these municipalities are known for their wealth and high property prices. In Bloemendaal and Laren, around three in every 10 people are millionaires.
Where are most Muslims in the Netherlands?
The majority of Muslims in the Netherlands belong to the Sunni denomination. Many reside in the country's four major cities: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.
| Religion | Percentage |
|---|---|
| No religious denomination | 57% |
| Roman Catholic | 18% |
| Protestant | 14% |
| Islam | 5% |
| Languages of Netherlands | |
|---|---|
| Minority | Yiddish, Romani |
| Immigrant | See further: Immigration to the Netherlands |
| Foreign | English (90%-93%) (excluding the BES Islands) German (71%), French (29%), Portuguese (5%) |
| Signed | Dutch Sign Language |
As of 2019, about 48,724 people of Indian immigrant descent lived in the Netherlands. Most of them live in the provinces of North Holland, South Holland and North Brabant. From 2016 to 2022 the population of Indians in the Netherlands doubled from 32,682 to 65,399 (Note that this number excludes Indo-Surinamese).
There are between 10,000 and 15,000 people of Serbian descent living in the Netherlands.
Popular belief holds that the Dutch are a mixture of Frisians, Saxons, and Franks. In fact, research has made plausible the contention that the autochthonous inhabitants of the region were a mixture of pre-Germanic and Germanic population groups who in the course of time had converged on the main deltaic…
The Dutch are the people who live in the Netherlands, or those that come from the Netherlands. Often the Netherlands is called Holland, but this is only part of the Netherlands.
The Netherlands (or Holland) may be a small country, but it's packed with world famous icons. Discover our bulb fields, windmills, cheese markets, wooden shoes, canals of Amsterdam, masterpieces of Old Masters, Delft Blue earthenware, innovative water-management and millions of bicycles.
The Dutch people prefer you use “The Netherlands” as Holland is a Western region of the country and consists of two provinces: North Holland and South Holland [it used to be a single Province].
Migration history
Earlier arrivals consisted of "guest workers", whose recruitment and admission was governed by a bilateral treaty signed in 1969. From the 1970s, the number arriving under family reunification schemes became more significant. Around half originated from the mountainous Rif region.
Why are some Dutch people dark?
The Dark-Skinned Dutch Immigrants
The darker complexions were usually due to intermarriage or out of wedlock births with Spanish soldiers during the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands. Many of these so-called “Black Dutch” are still in New York today while other families migrated south and west to other states.
Seeing as the Dutch refer to themselves as "nederlanders", there's no reason why the English can't use the equivalent 'netherlanders', in the same vein as 'greenlanders' or indeed 'new zealanders', but that's a different question.
Dutch people physical characteristics include being tall, having blue eyes, blond hair, and a slim build. This is a stereotype but not necessarily representative of all modern-day Dutch people.
Afro-Dutch or Black Dutch are residents of the Netherlands who are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry.
Exceptionally high fertility rates until the 1960s contributed to the Netherlands' being one of the world's most densely populated countries.
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