South Holland (original) (raw)

This article is about the province of the Netherlands. For the town in the United States, see South Holland, Illinois, and for the district of Lincolnshire, see South Holland, England


Introduction

South Holland (Dutch Zuid-Holland) is a province of the Netherlands, located in the west of the country on the North Sea coast. It is one of the most densely populated and industrial of the provinces. Neighbouring provinces are Zeeland to the southwest, Noord Brabant to the southeast, Gelderland to the east, Utrecht to the northeast and Noord-Holland to the north.

It contains the major cities of The Hague (Den Haag or s-Gravenhage) (the seat of government of the country and the seat of the International Court of Justice) and Rotterdam. Leiden, Delft and Gouda have town centers with many 17th-century buildings.

Rivers and other bodies of water include Nieuwe Maas, Nieuwe Waterweg, Oude Maas, Haringvliet, Hollands Diep.

Municipalities

South Holland is divided into 86 municipalities) (until 2004 91) (here with shopping evenings in parentheses, and links to maps in brackets):

On 1 January 2004 the municipalities De Lier, 's-Gravenzande, Monster, Naaldwijk and Wateringen will be merged to a new municipality Westland, and Maasland and Schipluiden to another one, Midden-Delfland.

Possibly Sassenheim, Voorhout and Warmond will be merged in the future.

Islands

(from north to south and from west to east, with municipalities)

Subdivisions

There are four official regions [1]:

The term Zuidvleugel refers to a large part of the province ([1], [1], p. 13):

These maps are not quite up-to-date: Heerjansdam has merged into Zwijndrecht.