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 ("Kolonie Curaçao en Onderhorige Eilanden") were colonies of the Netherlands. Suriname was a constituent country within the Kingdom from 1954 to 1975, while the Netherlands Antilles were a constituent country from 1954 until 2010. Suriname has since become an independent republic, and the Netherlands Antilles were dissolved into the constituent countries: Aruba (since 1986), Curaçao and Sint Maarten (since 2010), and the special municipalities of the Netherlands proper, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba. Netherlands New Guinea was a dependent territory of the Kingdom until 1962, but was not an autonomous country, and was not mentioned in the Charter. In 1955,