From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Provincie Zeeland Province of Zeeland
Flag Coat of arms
Capital	Middelburg
Queen's Commissioner	Karla Peijs
Religion (1999)	Protestant 35% Catholic 23%
Area  • Land  • Water	1,788 km² (10th) 1,146 km²
Population (2006)  • Total  • Density	380,186 (11th) 213/km² (10th)
Anthem	Zeeuws volkslied
ISO	NL-ZE
Official website	www.zeeland.nl

Zeeland (pronunciation (help·info)), also called Zealand in English, is a province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the south-west of the country, consists of a number of islands (hence its name, meaning "sea-land", although the origin could also be from "Suaven"-land, a Germanic tribe) and a strip bordering Belgium. Its capital is Middelburg. Its population is about 380,000 and its area is about 2930 km², of which almost 1140 km² is water. Large parts of Zeeland are below sea level. The last great flooding of the area was in 1953. Tourism is an important economic activity. Its sunny beaches make it a popular holiday destination in the summer. Most tourists are Germans. In some areas, the population quadruples in the summer. The coat of arms of Zeeland shows a lion half-emerged from water, and the text "luctor et emergo" (Latin for "I struggle and I emerge").

From north to south, it consists of

• Schouwen-Duiveland
• Tholen
• Noord-Beveland
• Walcheren, Zuid-Beveland
• Zeeuws-Vlaanderen (Zealands Flanders)

Map of the Netherlands, linking to the province pages; the red dots mark the capitals of the provinces and the black dots other notable cities or towns

Satellite image of the Scheldt estuary

A list of the municipalities, with links to maps:

• Borsele
• Goes [1]
• Hulst
• Kapelle [2]
• Middelburg [3]
• Noord-Beveland [4]
• Reimerswaal [5]
• Schouwen-Duiveland [6]
• Sluis
• Terneuzen
• Tholen
• Veere [7]
• Flushing (Vlissingen) [8]

The province of Zeeland is in fact a large river delta situated at the mouth of several major rivers. Most of the province lies below sea level and was reclaimed from the sea by inhabitants over time. What used to be a muddy landscape, flooding at high tide and reappearing at low tide, became a series of small man-made hills that stayed dry at all times. The people of the province would later connect the hills by creating dikes, which led to a chain of dry land that later grew into bigger islands and gave the province its current shape. The shape of the islands has changed over time at the hands of both man and nature. The North Sea flood of 1953 inundated vast amounts of land that were only partially reclaimed. The subsequent construction of the Delta Works also changed the face of the province. The infrastructure, although very distinct by the amount of bridges, tunnels and dams, has not shaped the geography of the province so much as the geography of the province has shaped its infrastructure. The dams, tunnels and bridges that are currently a vital part of the province's road system were constructed over the span of decades and came to replace old ferry lines. The final touch to this process came in 2003 when the Westerschelde tunnel was opened. It was the first solid connection between both banks of the Westerschelde and ended the era of water separating the islands and peninsulas of Zeeland.

Grafschaft Zeeland (de) Graafschap Zeeland (nl) County of Zeeland State of the Holy Roman Empire ←   ← 1299 – 1581 → Capital Middelburg Government Monarchy Historical era Middle Ages  - Personal union with    County of Holland   1299  - Joined Burgundian    Netherlands   1432  - Habsburg Seventeen    Provinces founded   1477  - Burgundian Circle founded 1512  - Foundation of    United Provinces   July 26, 1581

Zeeland was a contested area between the counts of Holland and Flanders until 1299, when the count of Holland gained control of the countship of Zeeland. Since then, Zeeland followed the fate of Holland. In 1432 it became part of the Low Countries possessions of Philip the Good of Burgundy, the later Seventeen Provinces. Through marriage, the Seventeen Provinces became property of the Habsburgs in 1477. In the Eighty Years' War, Zeeland was on the side of the Union of Utrecht, and became one of the United Provinces. The area now called Zeeuws-Vlaanderen was not part of Zeeland, but a part of the countship of Flanders (still under Habsburg) that was conquered by the United Provinces, hence called Staats-Vlaanderen (see: Generality Lands). After the French occupation (see département Bouches-de-l'Escaut) and the formation of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815, the present province Zeeland was formed. The catastrophic North Sea Flood of 1953, which killed over 1,800 people in Zeeland, led to the construction of the protective Delta Works.

There is one passenger railway, line 12, here with municipalities and official station abbreviations:

Vlissingen (vs, vss) - Middelburg (mdb, arn) - Goes (gs) - Kapelle (bzl) - Reimerswaal (krg, kbd, rb) - connecting to Bergen op Zoom (bgn) (Noord-Brabant).

Bus connections (of Connexxion, except # 395) include:

• bus 133: Vlissingen - Middelburg - Vrouwenpolder - Oosterscheldedam - Renesse - Zierikzee - Grevelingendam - connecting to Oude-Tonge, Rotterdam-Zuidplein
• Interliner Express bus 395: Zierikzee - (Grevelingendam) - connecting to Rotterdam-Zuidplein
• bus 104: Renesse - Brouwersdam - connecting to Ouddorp - Spijkenisse
• bus 20 and 50: see Westerschelde.

The islands of New Zealand were named by Dutch navigator Abel Tasman in 1642. Tasman named it Staten Landt, believing it to be part of the land of that name off the coast of Argentina. When that was shown not to be so Dutch authorities named it Nova Zeelandia in Latin, Nieuw Zeeland in Dutch. The two major seafaring provinces of the Netherlands in its Golden Age were Holland and Zeeland, and originally the Dutch explorers named the largest landmass of Oceania and the two islands to the southeast respectively Nieuw Holland and Nieuw Zeeland. The former was eventually replaced by the name Australia, but the name New Zealand remained in place for the latter. Captain James Cook subsequently called the archipelago New Zealand.

The town of Zeeland in the US state of Michigan was settled in 1847 by Dutchman Jannes Vande and was incorporated in 1907. The town still maintains a distinctive Dutch flavour. Flushing, a neighborhood within the borough of Queens, New York, is named after the city Flushing (Vlissingen in Dutch) in Zeeland. This dates from the period of the colony of New Netherland, when New York was still known as New Amsterdam. The Dutch colonies of Nieuw Walcheren and Nieuw Vlissingen, both on the Antillian island of Tobago, were both named after parts of Zeeland. The Canadian town of Zealand, New Brunswick, may have been named for the Zeeland birth place of Dutchman Philip Crouse who settled in the area in 1789.

• List of cities, towns and villages in Zeeland
• Zeeland, Michigan, USA
• Zeeland, North Dakota, USA

• Provincial Government
• Zeeland at a glance
• Zeeland Zakelijk Links
• Deltaworks Online - Flood Protection of Zeeland and Deltaregion
• Zeeland Photography

v • d • e Provinces of the Netherlands
Drenthe • Flevoland • Friesland • Gelderland • Groningen • Limburg • North Brabant • North Holland • Overijssel • South Holland • Utrecht • Zeeland

Coordinates: 51°34′N, 3°45′E

v • d • e Seventeen Provinces (1477) — Burgundian Circle (1512)
States	Artois | Brabant | Drenthe | Flanders | Friesland | Groningen | Guelders | Hainaut | Holland | Limburg | Luxembourg | Mechelen | Namur | Overijssel | Utrecht | Zeeland | Zutphen
Dependent territories	Antwerp | Besançon | Breda | Burgundy