The Netherlands or Holland is a country on the North Sea coast in Western Europe. It's part of the European Union and the Schengen Agreement and the Netherlands adopted the Euro as currency. Its immediate neighbours are Belgium to the South and Germany to the East. Holland has one official language: Dutch. English and German are also widely spoken.

The Netherlands is often called Holland, because of the role the two western provinces North and South Holland played in its history. This region encompasses Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and other well-known Dutch cities such as Delft, Leiden and Haarlem. However, officially, it is the Kingdom of the Netherlands, consisting of three parts: the Netherlands itself in Western Europe and the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba in the Caribbean.

Holland is quite small. The greatest distance from North to South is 300 kilometers, and from West to East 200 kilometers.

In some countries people need a visum to travel to The Netherlands. Please check the website of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to see if you need to obtain a visum for entering The Netherlands.

http://www.Holland.com
Official Website of The Netherlands. This website is available in many languages (German, French, Polska, etc.).

Temperature: around 15-20 degrees Celsius (60-70 degrees Fahrenheit) in September in the afternoon.
Electricity: 230 V, 50 Hz, two pin plugs
Currency: Euro, 1 EUR buys 1.21 USD (rate January 2006)