Capital of the Netherlands of government. Between 1808 and 1810, during the Kingdom of Holland, King Louis Napoleon resided in Amsterdam and declared the city capital of his kingdom and seat of government. To accommodate the king, the grand seventeenth-century Town Hall of Amsterdam, prime example of the republican values that were prevalent for so long in the Netherlands, was converted into a Royal Palace. In 1810 the Netherlands were annexed by the French Empire and King Louis Napoleon was replaced by a French governor, who took up residence in the Royal Palace in Amsterdam. From 1810 to 1813 Amsterdam kept its position of
Kingdom of the Netherlands Kingdom of the Netherlands The Kingdom of the Netherlands (; ), commonly known as the Netherlands, is a sovereign state and constitutional monarchy with the large majority of its territory in Western Europe and with several small island territories in the Caribbean Sea, in the West Indies islands (Leeward Islands and Lesser Antilles). The four parts of the kingdom—the Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten—are constituent countries ("landen" in Dutch) and participate on a basis of equality as partners in the kingdom. In practice, however, most of the kingdom's affairs are administered by the Netherlands—which comprises roughly 98% of the