Netherlands Map: 12 Provinces and 4 Regions of the Netherlands

This Netherlands map shows the country’s 12 provinces, grouped into 4 regions: North, East, West and South. The Netherlands had 18,130,208 residents on 1 January 2026 (Statistics Netherlands, CBS). Amsterdam is the capital, and The Hague is the seat of government. The map covers the European Netherlands only, so Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba are not drawn. Click a region or province to see its capital, population, area and UNESCO sites, or type any of the 342 municipalities in the search box to find its province.

How to use this map of the Netherlands

Every region and province on the map is clickable.

• Explore a region: click or tap it to open its provinces, population, area, landmarks and food. Switch the Regions / Provinces toggle to see the 12 provinces on their own.
• Compare data: use View by to color the map by region, population, density, area, GDP per capita, UNESCO sites or land below sea level. The land below sea level layer shows how much of each province lies under the Dutch reference level, from 96.5% in Flevoland to 0.0% in Limburg.
• Find a town: type a place in the search box to see its province and region. It answers questions such as which province Giethoorn, Eindhoven or Maastricht is in.
• Print it: Printables has a labelled map of the Netherlands and a blank map in A4.
• Take the data: Export downloads all 12 provinces as CSV with a citation.

We publish the same kind of map for other countries: regions of Switzerland, regions of Italy and the map of Canada. For the continent, see Europe, and for everything we have on the country, the Netherlands. To see how the country ranks among its neighbors, read the largest countries in Europe by population.

Regions of the Netherlands

Statistics Netherlands (CBS) splits the country into four landsdelen, the Dutch word for parts of the country: Northern, Eastern, Western and Southern Netherlands. They are the NUTS 1 level used for European statistics, and the 12 provinces are NUTS 2. The four regions are statistical groupings with no government of their own. Click a column heading to sort.

The Western Netherlands holds 8,701,736 people, 48.0% of the population, on 25.7% of the land. The Northern Netherlands is the opposite: 9.8% of the population on 24.6% of the land, or 215 people per km² against 1,008 in the West.

Two assignments surprise people. Zeeland is in the West, not the South, although it lies in the south-west corner of the country. Flevoland is in the East, grouped with Overijssel and Gelderland, although it is a polder province reclaimed from the Zuiderzee. CBS sets the membership as follows: Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe in the North; Overijssel, Flevoland and Gelderland in the East; Utrecht, North Holland, South Holland and Zeeland in the West; North Brabant and Limburg in the South.

The 4 regions one by one

Northern Netherlands (Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe) has 1,774,603 people along the Wadden Sea coast and the German border. It is the least densely populated of the four, and it holds the Frisian lakes, the Wadden Islands and the hunebedden of Drenthe. Groningen (244,427) is the largest city. Museums by province: Groningen, Friesland and Drenthe.

Eastern Netherlands (Overijssel, Flevoland, Gelderland) has 3,838,540 people, from the polders reclaimed from the Zuiderzee to the Veluwe and the German border. Almere (232,619) in Flevoland is the largest city, ahead of Nijmegen (189,871). Museums by province: Overijssel, Flevoland and Gelderland.

Western Netherlands (Utrecht, North Holland, South Holland, Zeeland) has 8,701,736 people and holds Amsterdam (941,927), Rotterdam (673,804), The Hague (569,468) and Utrecht (378,121). It contains the Randstad conurbation and the Delta Works in the south-west. Museums by province: Utrecht, North Holland, South Holland and Zeeland.

Southern Netherlands (North Brabant, Limburg) has 3,815,329 people along the Belgian and German borders. Eindhoven (249,783) is its technology center and Maastricht (126,026) its southern gateway on the Meuse. Museums by province: North Brabant and Limburg. For the whole country, see the complete list of museums in the Netherlands.

All 12 provinces of the Netherlands

The table lists every province with its two-letter code, capital, region, population, area and the year it took its present form. Click a heading to sort, or a province name to open its card on the map. Population is the CBS figure for 1 January 2026. Area is total area, including inland water and the tidal waters inside the provincial boundaries.

The Netherlands covers 41,543 km² in total and 33,626 km² of land, with 539 people per km² of land. The population grew 3.7% in five years, from 17,475,415 on 1 January 2021. Four provinces, South Holland, North Holland, North Brabant and Gelderland, hold 64.8% of it, and South Holland alone has 21.4%.

Capitals of the Netherlands and its provinces

Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands, as the constitution names it. The Hague (Den Haag) is the seat of the Dutch government and parliament. Amsterdam has 941,927 residents and The Hague 569,468, which makes The Hague the third-largest municipality after Amsterdam and Rotterdam (673,804). Amsterdam is in North Holland, whose provincial capital is Haarlem (168,898). The Hague is also the capital of South Holland.

In 8 of the 12 provinces the capital is not the largest municipality:

• North Holland: capital Haarlem (168,898), largest Amsterdam (941,927).
• South Holland: capital The Hague (569,468), largest Rotterdam (673,804).
• North Brabant: capital ’s-Hertogenbosch (162,295), largest Eindhoven (249,783).
• Flevoland: capital Lelystad (85,781), largest Almere (232,619).
• Gelderland: capital Arnhem (171,822), largest Nijmegen (189,871).
• Overijssel: capital Zwolle (134,147), largest Enschede (162,683).
• Drenthe: capital Assen (70,769), largest Emmen (109,881).
• Zeeland: capital Middelburg (50,439), largest Terneuzen (55,955).

In Groningen, Friesland (Leeuwarden), Utrecht and Limburg (Maastricht) the capital is also the largest municipality. “Largest” means the most populous municipality, and Dutch municipalities are administrative units rather than cities: Terneuzen covers many villages, and Noordoostpolder and Schouwen-Duiveland each cover several towns.

Largest and smallest provinces

The answer depends on whether you count water. CBS publishes a total area, which includes inland water and tidal waters inside the provincial boundaries (the Wadden Sea, IJsselmeer, Markermeer and the Zeeland estuaries), and a land area without any water. This page ranks by land area and gives the total as a second figure. The map itself draws land-oriented boundaries, so the IJsselmeer, Markermeer and Wadden Sea show as water and not as part of Friesland or Flevoland.

Water takes 19.1% of the country’s total area. After Friesland, the water-heaviest provinces are Flevoland (41.3%), Zeeland (39.3%) and North Holland (34.9%). On land, Gelderland (4,956 km²) and North Brabant (4,900 km²) lead, and Friesland has 3,325 km².

South Holland (1,437 people per km²), North Holland (1,130) and Utrecht (953) are the three densest provinces, and Drenthe (193) and Friesland (200) the two emptiest. GDP per capita is the CBS figure for 2024, provisional, in euros per resident. North Holland and Utrecht (EUR 75,651) lead, and the national figure is EUR 62,381. It divides what is produced in a province by its residents, so provinces whose workers commute elsewhere, such as Flevoland (EUR 48,233), come out lower. The GDP layer maps all 12. For the other end of the income scale, see the poorest cities in the Netherlands.

Does the Netherlands have states or provinces?

The Netherlands has provinces, 12 of them, and no states. The provinces sit between the national government and the 342 municipalities. Do not confuse the Netherlands with the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which also includes Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten as separate countries. Those three are not provinces and not part of this map. The Caribbean islands that are part of the Netherlands itself are covered below.

Holland vs the Netherlands

Holland is not a country. It is a historic region that today is two of the 12 provinces, North Holland and South Holland. The Netherlands is the country. Holland was a single province until 1840, when it was split in two.

Holland packs 38.0% of the people into 16.0% of the land. By total area, with water, it is 17.8%. It contains the three largest municipalities, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, plus Haarlem and Leiden. That is why “Holland” is common shorthand for the whole country. Saying “Holland” about Groningen, Limburg or Zeeland is wrong in the formal sense. For what the country as a whole is known for, see 8 things the Netherlands is known for.

The Randstad and the great rivers

The Randstad is the urban ring of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. It has no legal definition, so figures vary by source. Using the three provinces usually called the Randstad provinces, North Holland, South Holland and Utrecht, it has 8,307,198 people, 45.8% of the country, on 20.4% of the land, or 1,213 people per km². Adding Flevoland gives 8,770,014 people, 48.4%, on 24.6% of the land.

The other common divide is the line of the great rivers, the Rhine, Waal and Meuse. Roughly, Zeeland, North Brabant and Limburg lie south of them: 4,209,867 people, 23.2% of the population, and 26.2% of the land. Gelderland straddles the rivers. The line is often used as a rough divide between north and south. It does not match the CBS regions: Zeeland is in the West, and only North Brabant and Limburg are the Southern Netherlands.

Land below sea level by province

About 26% of the Netherlands lies below NAP (Normaal Amsterdams Peil), the Dutch reference height, which is close to mean sea level. The PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency gives the same figure, and adds that 59% of the country is flood-prone, which counts land behind or outside dikes that could flood. We found no published figure by province, so we calculated one. The land below sea level layer on the map shows the result.

Flevoland is almost entirely below NAP: 96.5% of a province of land reclaimed from the Zuiderzee. North Holland (69.0%) and South Holland (61.4%) follow, so about 65% of the two Holland provinces combined is below sea level. At the other end, Limburg has none, Gelderland 0.8% and Drenthe 1.9%. Limburg also has the highest point in the European Netherlands, the Vaalserberg at 322.4 m. The lowest point of the country is in the Zuidplaspolder in South Holland, about 7 m below NAP. Most of this land is protected by dikes and pumped dry, so the layer shows elevation and not flood risk.

How we calculated it. The heights come from AHN4, the national elevation model at 5 m resolution, sampled every 25 m inside the same province outlines the map draws. A sample counts as below NAP when its height is under 0.0 m. The share is samples below NAP divided by all samples in the province, so it includes the rivers, canals and small lakes inside the outline, whose heights are interpolated. That is why the denominator is 35,088 km² and not the 33,626 km² of CBS land area. Treat the figures for water-rich provinces such as Overijssel and South Holland as accurate to about 5 percentage points and the others to about 2. The national result of 26.1% matches PBL’s 26%. For more of the country’s water, see our list of lakes in the Netherlands.

Languages by province

Dutch is the national language everywhere. Three regional languages have legal recognition on top of it. West Frisian is co-official in Friesland and has been recognised under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages since 1996. Dutch Low Saxon is recognised as a regional language under the same Charter, and so is Limburgish, since 1997.

Dutch Low Saxon covers the north-east and east. Friesland also has Frisian-Saxon dialects in the Stellingwerf area. Zeelandic and Brabantian are regional dialects of Dutch and have no Charter status. In the Caribbean Netherlands, Dutch is the legal language, while Papiamento is widely spoken on Bonaire and English on Sint Eustatius and Saba. For the phrases a visitor needs, see basic Dutch phrases for travel, and for who lives in the country, Netherlands ethnic groups.

UNESCO World Heritage sites by province

The Kingdom of the Netherlands has 13 UNESCO World Heritage properties. Twelve are in the provinces, and the 13th, the Historic Area of Willemstad, is in Curaçao and so in no province. The latest inscription was the Eisinga Planetarium in 2023, and none were added in 2024, 2025 or 2026. A property that crosses a provincial border counts in each province it touches, so the province lists add up to 20.

North Holland and South Holland have four each, Friesland and Utrecht three, and Gelderland two. Groningen, Drenthe, Flevoland and North Brabant have one each. Overijssel, Zeeland and Limburg have none. The Dutch Water Defence Lines reach South Holland only in a small part, according to UNESCO. The UNESCO layer counts the sites per province, and our list of historical places in the Netherlands goes beyond the World Heritage list.

The Caribbean Netherlands: Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba

Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba are part of the Netherlands but belong to no province, which is why they are not on the map. Since 10 October 2010 they have been special municipalities (bijzondere gemeenten), legally public bodies (openbare lichamen). CBS counted 33,229 people there on 1 January 2026, and they are not part of the 18,130,208 in the provinces.

Bonaire map and where the islands are

Bonaire is the largest of the three and has 83.1% of the population. It lies in the southern Caribbean, off the coast of Venezuela. Sint Eustatius and Saba are in the north-east Caribbean, near Sint Maarten. GDP per inhabitant across the three islands was USD 30,200 in 2024.

The islands are often confused with Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten. Those three are separate countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with their own governments, and they are not the Caribbean Netherlands. Searches for the “Dutch Caribbean” mix all six islands.

Which province is it in?

Search a town on the map to see its province and region. These are the places visitors ask about most, and several are not where a traveler might guess.

Amsterdam is in North Holland, not South Holland, and Rotterdam and The Hague are in South Holland. Keukenhof is in South Holland, not in Utrecht or Amsterdam. Efteling is in North Brabant, in the south. The country borders Germany to the east and Belgium to the south; our list of countries that border the Netherlands covers both. Flying in? See the airports in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is in the Schengen Area, so days spent there count toward the 90/180 rule in our Schengen calculator. For more on the country, see the safest cities in the Netherlands and the traditions of the Netherlands.

How the map took shape, 1815 to 2026

The provinces have not changed shape since Flevoland was added. The 342 municipalities change more often. Recent mergers include Eemsdelta in 2021, Land van Cuijk, Maashorst and Dijk en Waard in 2022, and Voorne aan Zee in 2023. None crossed a province boundary. Hilversum and Wijdemeren, both in North Holland, are planned to merge on 1 January 2027. North Brabant has the most municipalities (56), then Gelderland (51) and South Holland (50), and Flevoland has the fewest (6). The search box on the map covers all 342, with old names such as Weesp or Haren pointing to the municipality that replaced them.

Frequently asked questions

What is the capital of the Netherlands?

Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands. The Hague is the seat of the government and parliament, and it is the capital of South Holland. Amsterdam is the larger of the two, with 941,927 residents against 569,468. Both are in the west of the country, in the provinces of North Holland and South Holland.

How many provinces does the Netherlands have?

The Netherlands has 12 provinces. Flevoland is the newest, created on 1 January 1986 on land reclaimed from the Zuiderzee. The 12 are Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe, Overijssel, Flevoland, Gelderland, Utrecht, North Holland, South Holland, Zeeland, North Brabant and Limburg. The Caribbean islands are not provinces.

Is Holland a country or a province?

Neither. Holland is a historic region, and the country is called the Netherlands. Holland used to be a single province and has been two since 1840: North Holland and South Holland. They are 2 of the 12 provinces, so a trip to Groningen, Zeeland or Maastricht is a trip to the Netherlands but not to Holland.

What is the difference between Holland and the Netherlands?

The Netherlands is the country, with 18,130,208 people in 12 provinces. Holland is two of those provinces, with 6,892,094 people, or 38.0% of the population, on 16.0% of the land. It includes Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. Using “Holland” for the whole country is common abroad but formally wrong.

Does the Netherlands have states or provinces?

Provinces. There are 12, and they sit below the national government and above the 342 municipalities. The four regions on this map, North, East, West and South, are statistical groupings used by CBS and Europe, and they are not a level of government. The Netherlands has no states.

Which province is Amsterdam in?

Amsterdam is in North Holland. Rotterdam is in South Holland, Utrecht is in the province of Utrecht, Eindhoven is in North Brabant, and Maastricht is in Limburg. Giethoorn is in Overijssel, and Keukenhof is in South Holland. Type any other place in the search box to see its province.

What are the 4 regions of the Netherlands, and why is Zeeland in the West?

The CBS regions (landsdelen) are Northern, Eastern, Western and Southern Netherlands. CBS places Zeeland in the West with Utrecht, North Holland and South Holland, so the South has only North Brabant and Limburg. Flevoland is in the East. These are statistical groupings and have no government.

What and where is the Randstad?

The Randstad is the urban ring around Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht, in the west of the country. It has no official boundary. The three provinces of North Holland, South Holland and Utrecht hold 45.8% of the Dutch population on 20.4% of the land, and the number rises to 48.4% with Flevoland.

How much of the Netherlands is below sea level?

About 26% of the land lies below NAP, the Dutch reference level close to sea level, and 59% is flood-prone, according to the PBL. The share varies by province. Flevoland is 96.5% below NAP, North Holland 69.0% and South Holland 61.4%, while Limburg has none. Dikes and pumps protect most of this land.

Are Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba part of the Netherlands?

Yes. They have been special municipalities of the Netherlands since 10 October 2010, with 33,229 residents in total. They are in no province, and so they are not on this map. Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten are different: they are separate countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Which Dutch province is the biggest, the smallest and the most populous?

By land area, Gelderland is the biggest (4,956 km²) and Flevoland the smallest (1,415 km²). By total area with water, Friesland is the biggest (5,753 km²) and Utrecht the smallest (1,560 km²). South Holland is the most populous, with 3,882,708 people, and Zeeland the least, with 394,538.

What languages are spoken in the Netherlands besides Dutch?

West Frisian is co-official in Friesland, Dutch Low Saxon is recognised in the north-east and east, and Limburgish is recognised in Limburg. Papiamento is common on Bonaire and English on Sint Eustatius and Saba. Dutch is the national language throughout.

Sources and methodology

• Population: Statistics Netherlands (CBS), StatLine 37230ned, population at the start of January 2026 (definitive) and January 2021, checked against 70072ned and the sum of the 342 municipalities. The 12 provinces sum to the national total of 18,130,208. The figures cover the European Netherlands and exclude the Caribbean Netherlands.
• Area, density and municipalities: CBS StatLine 70072ned, 2026. Total area includes inland water and the tidal waters inside the provincial boundaries and sums to 41,543 km². Land area has no water and sums to 33,626 km². Density is population divided by land area, as CBS computes it.
• Boundaries and regions: CBS gebiedsindelingen 2026 via PDOK (CC BY 4.0): the 12 provinces, 4 landsdelen and 342 municipalities as land-oriented generalised outlines, about 35,088 km². Water bodies come from Kadaster Bestuurlijke Gebieden (CC0).
• GDP per capita: CBS StatLine 85924ned, 2024, euros at market prices, provisional, with the NUTS 2 table from Eurostat as a second source: all 12 provinces agree within 100 euros. The national figure of EUR 62,381 includes production that is not allocated to a province.
• Land below sea level: computed from AHN4 DTM 5 m (Rijkswaterstaat and Het Waterschapshuis, CC0), sampled every 25 m inside the CBS province outlines. A sample below 0.0 m NAP counts as below sea level. The denominator is the sampled outline area, including inland water at interpolated heights. An independent check on 144 random 300 m windows of the 0.5 m elevation model, 12 per province, gave 27.8% nationally against 26.9% on our grid in the same windows. The national share is compared with the PBL figure of 26%. NAP is close to but not identical with mean sea level.
• Holland, Randstad and river shares: sums of the CBS province figures above. The Randstad and the line of the great rivers have no legal definition, so the groupings are ours.
• Caribbean Netherlands: CBS StatLine 83698ned, population on 1 January 2026, and 85251ned, GDP per inhabitant in US dollars for 2024.
• Languages: legal status from the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages as summarized in Wikipedia’s articles on the languages of the Netherlands, West Frisian, Dutch Low Saxon and Limburgish (facts only).
• World Heritage: UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 13 properties for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, checked on 1 November 2026. Serial properties are split by province using their component sites; the Lower German Limes is assigned by the coordinates of its 19 Dutch components.
• Towns: populations of the five largest municipalities per province are CBS figures for 1 January 2026, with coordinates from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0).

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