An international nation under pressure
Following a long historical tradition, the country has remained a welcoming land for foreigners. Major cities are home to many different nationalities. Over 180 nationalities coexist peacefully in Amsterdam, making it a truly cosmopolitan city. All is not rosy, far from it, and tougher rhetoric has been on the increase, embodied for over 20 years by Pim Fortuyn, then Geert Wilders and Thierry Baudet, whose Forum voor Democratie party is a kind of Dutch Zemmour. However, the Dutch are fiercely loyal to their model of integration and tolerance.
Immigration. As in any country with a long history of colonialism, immigration makes a major contribution to the country's population and economic activity. Net migration has always been positive, mainly due to the arrival of workers from Mediterranean countries (especially Turkey). The Netherlands has also seen strong immigration from the Netherlands Antilles (91,000 people now living in the Netherlands) and Surinam (around 190,000 people born in Surinam live in the Netherlands). The country is also home to 35,000 Moluccans, 25,000 Chinese and 1,500 Gypsies. 700,000 foreigners live in the Netherlands, mainly in the major western cities. French will be spoken with French-speaking populations of mainly Moroccan and Tunisian origin, present in large numbers in Rotterdam. Population growth will be slower this century.
Some figures
In 2024, there will be 17.9 million inhabitants, including one million in Amsterdam. With 529 inhabitants per km2, the country is one of the most densely populated in the world. With a demographic growth rate of 0.95% in 2022, people aged 65 and over represent 20.5% of the population. Finally, there are 25,000 registered members of the Consulate General of France in the Netherlands.
An important information
The Dutch are the tallest people in the world, and a visit to the Netherlands will make you feel small, very small at times. On average, a Dutch man is 182.9 centimetres tall and a Dutch woman 170.7. The situation is quite impressive and reinforces the constant cliché that associates the Batavians with the Scandinavians. Since 1980, the Dutch have stopped growing and are even tending to shrink, while remaining by far the tallest. This stunted growth is thought to be due to poor eating habits, but others believe it's also due to a biological limit being reached. During your stay, you're bound to come across some very tall people, and this size tends to contrast with the infrastructure (buildings, doors, sanitary facilities), which is often modest in size, particularly in city centers.
Spreekt u Nederlands?
Dutch, an Indo-European language very close to German, remains for most of us virtually unpronounceable! Fortunately, the Dutch are polyglot, and love to show off their mastery of English and sometimes their (increasingly limited) mastery of French. In general, the practice of foreign languages is so well developed in this country with its strong commercial tradition that we can take good lessons in applied cosmopolitanism.
The Dutch language dates back to the 8th century. It belongs to the Germanic language family (like English and German). Dutch is the mother tongue of 22 million Flemings and Dutch people. It is also the official language of Suriname (population 550,000) and the Netherlands Antilles (population approx. 285,000), both part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Dutch still plays an important role as a foreign language in Indonesia, whose population is estimated at over 230 million. A language closely related to Dutch, Afrikaans, is spoken as a mother tongue by over 6 million people in South Africa (total population: 44 million), and is the first foreign language for 10 million people.
The case of the Friesian
In the northern province of Friesland, a dialect is spoken by the inhabitants in addition to the official Dutch language: Frisian, West Frisian to be exact. This language is only spoken in the northern province of Friesland (Fryslân). The majority of Dutch people are not fluent in this language. In this region, Frisian has become the official language of administration and education. The Frisian authorities require official documents to be translated into Frisian, and some websites and street names are bilingual. There are around 500,000 Frisian speakers worldwide.
Champions of English
English is very well mastered in the Netherlands, and over 90% of Dutch people consider themselves capable of holding a conversation in the language. Expatriates who try to learn Dutch are dismayed, as their efforts often result in answers in English. This mastery is due to the linguistic proximity of the two idioms, to a Dutch sense of communication and to the subtitling of all programs, from children's programs onwards. Numerous university programs are offered in English, enabling many international students to pursue their studies in the Netherlands without difficulty. Mastery of English is generally better in the big cities than in the countryside. As perfection doesn't exist, we call "Dunglish" English, which is full of Batavisms.
An attractive country for the French
The Netherlands is attracting more and more French people, especially to Amsterdam and The Hague, and this is reflected in the new stores and a certain je-ne-sais-quoi in certain neighborhoods. Officially numbering around 20,000, probably more than double that, the French community is constantly growing and is an active community that goes out a lot. The French people around you during your stay are not necessarily tourists! On the other hand, the Dutch speak less and less French, our language having totally lost the battle against English since the 1980s... If you don't speak English, don't hesitate to try your hand at French: the Dutch have a natural talent for languages, and there's no need to worry about that. French neighborhoods are often located in the vicinity of French schools, i.e. the Pijp or Zuid districts in Amsterdam or Statenkwartier in The Hague.
