Capital of the Netherlands but also for royal weddings (note though that royal burials take place in Delft), and also because of its dominant position in Dutch history. From the end of the 16th century the city grew rapidly to become the largest and most powerful city in the Netherlands and the main centre of trade, commerce, finance and culture. The origins of the split between Amsterdam as capital city and The Hague as seat of government lay in the peculiar Dutch constitutional history. From the middle-ages to the sixteenth century, The Hague had been the seat of government of the County of Holland
Kingdom of the Netherlands into 12 provinces: Drenthe, Flevoland, Friesland, Gelderland, Groningen, Limburg, Noord-Brabant, Noord-Holland, Overijssel, Utrecht, Zeeland, and Zuid-Holland. The provinces are divided into municipalities. The Prime Minister of the Netherlands is Mark Rutte. The Netherlands has the euro as its currency, except in the special municipalities of the Caribbean Netherlands (BES islands), where the Netherlands Antillean guilder was replaced by the US dollar in 2011. The special municipalities of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba (referred to as Caribbean Netherlands or "BES islands") are part of the Netherlands proper but do not form part of a province. They resemble ordinary Dutch municipalities in