The Netherlands culture includes different kind of cultural activities. There are also a lot of traditions , holidays and so on. We have a lot of holidays. Queens day is on 30 April that’s the day of our previous queen’s birthday. In the Netherlands a lot of people are Christian so we celebrate Christmas, good Friday, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost are national holidays. In a lot of places they celebrate before Ash Wednesday carnival. On 5 december we celebrate St. Nicolas, but that isn’t a holiday. St. Marten is also a Christian party, but it isn’t national. In the Netherlands we celebrate just like in any other places new years eve.

Each province has its traditional dishes and delicacies such as boluses from Zeeland, Bossche bulbs from ‘s-Hertogenbosch in North Brabant and Limburg flan. The Netherlands is also familiar for their cheese and their Dutch herring. What is also very known about the Netherlands are the clogs. They were invented over 800 years ago so it’s a part of our culture and history.

In the Stone Age and Iron Age there wasn’t a Dutch identity. In the Roman Age the Roman had a name for Dutch people living in certain parts of the country. They called them in general the Belgian people so they weren’t aware of the Dutch’s yet. The history of the Netherlands is separated in seven periods. In 1945 the Netherlands officially belongs to the European Union. On 1 January 2002 the Euro was introduced in the Netherlands and other countries in the EU as the currency. Now we’re in the period of television and computer. This period is started since 1950. For example in 1953 there was a flood and in 1992 there was the Bijlmer disaster. This event include to the history of the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands the population contains 16.660.734 people. Each day the residents grow with 235 persons. The most people who live in the Netherlands are 40 years old. 135000 men has this age and 132.000 women are 40. The people of 45 years old are also a lot, because there’re 134.00 men and 131.000 women with this age. In the Netherlands live 1743 people who are older than 100 years. The most of the people are women, but the men who reaches this age is growing. Men are in the minority with this age only 1  of the 7 people above 100 are men. You can also see that there’re not a lot of people who gets above the 105 years old.

There are Two years ago the work population of the Netherlands contained 7715 million people. These people work in the agriculture and horticulture, livestock sector, fishery, industry, trade and banking, transport sector and tourism. 64% works in the Services, 29% works in the Industry and 4% works in the Agriculture. People who work in the Netherlands has a lot of safeties. if you work somewhere your boss can’t fire you without a good reason. If you get fired you can get for instance an unemployment benefit it depends on how long you worked somewhere and other things the benefit also contains a part of your old salary. If you’re unable to work you can get a disability benefit.

The salary differences in the Netherlands can be because of different kind of things. Men earn average more money than women. This is because it’s possible that women work less in a week. These jobs are most of the time harder work which women don’t want to do. There are also differences between a employee who just started with working and a employee who is already working for a long time in the same company or the same sector. The education of the people also have influence on the salary of employees. If someone has done a very great study on the university they will get more paid than someone who has their MBO diploma. Women who work in the financial sector and in the healthcare earn less relative to men.

Economy

The Dutch population earns their money in different kind of ways. People can work in an office on work or in a school building, or in the town hall for example. An also growing workplace is at home. People choose for this because they can do everything they want while doing their work. Maybe a single mother can ’t find a babysitter so she has to stay home, but she has a job. There are a couple of businesses who offer home working for their employees. So the Dutch people earn their money by working. There is a law that has set the minimum wage for each age and sector. So people get paid for who their age and what they do. The most of the people get their salary on their bank each 4 weeks. The hours they work they get paid, because people has an hour pay. After that the company counts on the possible charges and then they count off the taxes.

The government gets money through raise taxes. The working population pays taxes, because this is getting count off their salary. actually everyone pays taxes only they aren’t aware of it. When people buy for example alcohol there is 19% taxes included in the price. The government also earns money by companies they are a part owner. The government takes care for a lot of things in the Netherlands so they need the money to afford this. These are things that the population or businesses can’t do by themselves so they need a little help. Everyone in the Netherlands uses the things what the government cares for. There are different kind of taxes, direct and indirect. Direct taxes are like income tax. Indirect taxes are taxes that people pay for example through the alcohol seller.

There are different kind of things where the Dutch peoples spend their money on. They can spend their money on personal things like clothes, shoes and so on. They can spend their money on household products like a new vacuum cleaner, cleaning products and so on. The expenditure of people can be divided into primary and luxury goods. Primary goods are things like food and luxury goods can be like a car. The most of the people can’t live with their money so they also have loans. Another important thing people spend their money on are fixed costs like the rent, electricity, gas and water and so on. Because you can’t live without house. You can’t live without electricity, gas and water, because how are you going to cook or do the dishes. These things are the main things you should pay a lot of people forget this and get into money troubles.

The government has a budget of 254,7 billion euro to spend in 2011. The most money they are going to spends goes to the costs of the health care. After that they want to spend their money on social services and child benefit. The third thing they want to spend their money on are the salaries of teachers and the study founding. The rent subsidies, urban renewal and remediation are important ingredients of the budget. They want to construct and build roads, but that’s naturally. Every country of the EU pays a part of the costs of the Union. The biggest expeditions of the EU are for the Agriculture.

Infrastructure

In the Netherlands we have now a 2900 km railway. A railroad, railroad or railway is a path consisting of two parallel steel bars, known as rail or rail. These were put down on sleepers, called ‘sleepers’, usually of wood or concrete. Also metal sleepers come to that. The distance between the two faces of the heads of the rail gauge is called. This is typically 1435 mm it’s the standard gauge, but other gauges are used. Most of the railway network in the Netherlands on behalf of the central government controlled by ProRail. Other parts of railways are managed by several managers (Keyrail, Hague Region, Rotterdam City, tourist and museum railroads) and often have the status of local railways. Major stations in terms of traffic and transport volumes include Central Station, The Hague Central Station, Central Station Rotterdam, and Utrecht Central Station Station Zwolle.

A road is a narrow strip of land or the area of artificial structure, such as a dam or a bridge, used and adapted for the road. Roads are mostly paved the negotiability of improving vehicle and possible. Roads are an important part of the transportation infrastructure. With roads are usually referring to public roads, so in the rest of this article. There are also so-called “private roads” that are not public for road management. There are often along roads sidewalks or bike paths installed. These are not officially lanes, but they are usually part of the same road. They are way too small to be called roads. Pedestrians, cyclists and other slow traffic may not be itself without need for a car road. It is impossible that such a bicycle path on road runs. Is there still a bicycle path along a car way (eg Dam), it must be assumed that a separate cycle path. The boundary of the car (fast) way than in the soft verge, for example in the guardrail.

There are two main ports in the Netherlands; Rotterdam Airport and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Rotterdam Airport was originally called Airport Zestienhoven. The airport was opened in 1956 and was initially quite successful. In the 70 situation started to change and threatened closure of the airport. With the economic boom in the 90s turned the tide and it was decided the current airport site to maintain. On and around the airport is being developed by RTM Airpark, a luxury office location. The project should be finished in 2020. Rotterdam Airport is the major regional airport in the Netherlands and annually processes more than 1 million passengers. Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is the biggest airport of the Netherlands. It’s also one of the biggest airports of Europe. They transport freight and passengers.The airport is located in the municipality of Haarlemmermeer and is located about 15 km southwest of Amsterdam. Schiphol is the home of the Dutch airline KLM, Martinair, ArkeFly transavia.com and Amsterdam Airlines. The airport is located a few meters below sea level and has started six runways. At the airport where it stands, has been a village: Empire. The name “airport” is also used as place names, as well as Schiphol-Oost and Schiphol-Rijk.

The airport is owned by the Schiphol Group, whose shareholders are the Dutch state and the municipalities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

Political situations

The Netherlands is a stable country, because the people has different rights. It’s not that there is one person who has the power of the whole country. Politics of the Netherlands take place within a parliamentary democracy, a constitutional monarchy and a decentralized unitary state. Netherlands is a consensus democracy with political institutions aimed at a broad consensus between political actors. The Dutch constitution describes the key social and conventional rights of Dutch citizens and key political institutions. The Constitution of the Netherlands is only applicable in the Netherlands (both the European and the Islands). The Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands refers to the entire Kingdom, including Aruba, Curacao and St. Maarten. Although the Netherlands has no constitutional court judges and laws are not allowed to review the Constitution, laws, judges can do with international treaties and the Charter for the Kingdom and they can review legislation that is not a law (such as royal decrees or general local regulations) are keys to the constitution. Amendments to the Constitution, two times by both Houses of the States-General were approved. The first time by a simple majority in both houses. These are then dissolved and new elections held and both chambers of parliament rejected by a two thirds majority.

The main political institutions are the Queen, the Cabinet, the States General and the Judicial System. In addition, three High Councils of State formally as important as the States-General but a less political role, the most important of these is the Council of State. Other local authorities, municipalities, provinces and water boards. Although not mentioned in the constitution, political parties and social partners united in the Economic and Social Council also important political actors. Netherlands has no separation of powers in the classical sense. The constitution shall notify the States General and the Government (Queen and Council of Ministers) along the legislature. In addition, legislation should be asked for advice to the Council of State. Executive power lies with the government. The judiciary is divided into several different types of courts. For civil and criminal law, the Hoge Raad der Nederlanden the highest court for administrative law, the Council of State Supreme Court, the Queen ex officio chairman.

The Cabinet will, in principle, based on consensus decision. The Ministerial Council may vote on decisions. The cabinet is collectively responsible to and must enjoy the confidence of the States General. Ministers and state secretaries are expected to resign if a majority in parliament denounces the confidence in a Minister. It is not possible for a minister or state secretary to be a member of the States General, subject to a period of three months, after new elections. Many ministers, however, are selected from the groups, they must give up their seat. The prime minister is the chairman of the Cabinet. His official role is to coordinate government policy. He is also Minister of General Affairs. The task of this small department, the Prime Minister in support of its coordinating role and the communication of government decisions. The office of the Prime Minister is the turret.

Conclusion:

The culture and history of the Netherlands is very interesting. There are different kind of holidays the most has to do with the Christian religion. The most of the people are 40 years old. The most people work in services. The salary differences are becoming less. The people earn their money by working. They spend the most of their money on primary things. The government earns money by different kind of taxes. They spend their money on for example building new roads and give people and businesses benefits. The railroads are 2900 km long. The biggest airport in the Netherlands is Schiphol it’s 2787 hectares big. The political situation of the Netherlands is pretty good, because the citizens has something to say about what the country has to do. The bad thing about it is that the cabinet is fallen so we have to choose another one.