Capital of the Netherlands capital city somewhat, as Emperor Napoleon declared the city to be the third city of the Empire (after Paris and Rome) and an imperial residence. In December 1813, after the fall of Napoleon and the accession of Prince William VI of Orange as Sovereign of the Netherlands, The Hague was restored as the seat of government. Although the proper legal status of Amsterdam as capital of the Netherlands is of recent date, the city has been uniformly recognised as capital ever since 1814. This is partly because it is a "Royal City", used not only for the inauguration of kings,
Kingdom of the Netherlands state of the German Confederation. In 1830, Belgium seceded from the Kingdom, a step that was recognised by the Netherlands only in 1839. At that point, Luxembourg became a fully independent country in a personal union with the Netherlands. Luxembourg also lost more than half of its territory to Belgium. To compensate the German Confederation for that loss, the remainder of the Dutch province of Limburg received the same status that Luxembourg had enjoyed before, as a Dutch province that at the same time formed a Duchy of the German Confederation. That status was reversed when the German Confederation ceased