Everything about the Netherlands Antilles totally explained
The
Netherlands Antilles (
Dutch: ), previously known as the
Netherlands West Indies or
Dutch Antilles/West Indies, is part of the
Lesser Antilles and consists of two
groups of islands in the
Caribbean Sea:
Curaçao and
Bonaire, just off the
Venezuelan coast, and
Sint Eustatius,
Saba and
Sint Maarten, located southeast of the
Virgin Islands. The islands form an autonomous part of the
Kingdom of the Netherlands. The islands' economy depends mostly upon
tourism, international financial services, international commerce and shipping and
petroleum.
The
Netherlands Antilles was scheduled to be dissolved as a unified political entity on December 15, 2008, so that the five constituent islands will attain new constitutional statuses within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This dissolution is still planned, but has been postponed to an indefinite future date.
History
Alonso de Ojeda, 1499) and windward (
Christopher Columbus, 1493) island groups were discovered and initially settled by
Spain. In the 17th century, the islands were conquered by the
Dutch West India Company and were used as military outposts and trade bases, most prominent the slave trade. Slavery was abolished in1863.
In 1954, the status of the islands was up-graded from a colonial territory to a part of the
Kingdom of the Netherlands as a separate country within the kingdom. The island of
Aruba was part of the Netherlands Antilles until 1986, when it was granted
status aparte, becoming yet another part of the
Kingdom of the Netherlands as a separate country within the kingdom.
Between June 2000 and April 2005, each island of the Netherlands Antilles had a referendum on its future status. The four options that could be voted on were:
- closer ties with the Netherlands
- remaining within the Netherlands Antilles
- autonomy as a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands (status aparte)
- independence
Of the five islands, Sint Maarten and Curaçao voted for
status aparte, Saba and Bonaire voted for closer ties to the Netherlands, and Sint Eustatius voted to stay within the Netherlands Antilles.
The full results were:
Further Information
Get more info on 'Netherlands Antilles'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://netherlands_antilles.totallyexplained.com">Netherlands Antilles Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
