The is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

It is a small, densely populated country, lying mainly in Western Europe, but also including three islands in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing maritime borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom and Germany. The three largest and most important cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, The Hague and . Amsterdam is the country's capital. The Netherlands in its entirety is often referred to as "Holland", which in strict usage, refers only to North and South Holland, two of its provinces.

The Netherlands has 20 national parks and hundreds of other nature reserves, that include lakes, heathland, woods, dunes and other habitats.

Cycling is a ubiquitous mode of transport in the Netherlands. Almost as many kilometres are covered by bicycle as by train.The Dutch are estimated to have at least 18 million bicycles, which makes more than one per capita, and twice as many as the ca. 9 million motor vehicles on the road

Approximately 4.5 million of the 16.8 million people in the Netherlands are registered to one of the 35,000 sports clubs in the country. About two-thirds of the population between 15 and 75 participates in sports weekly. Football is the most popular participant sport in the Netherlands, before and volleyball as the second and third most popular team sports. , gymnastics and are the three most widely engaged individual sports

Utrecht is the capital and most populous city in the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 328,577 in 2014. Utrecht's ancient city centre features many buildings and structures from the Early Middle Ages. It has been the religious centre of the Netherlands since the 8th century. Until the , Utrecht was the most important city of the Netherlands; then, Amsterdam became its cultural centre and most populous city.Utrecht is host to Utrecht University, the largest university of the Netherlands, as well as several other institutes for higher education. Due to its central position within the country, it is an important transport hub for both rail and road transport. It has the second highest number of cultural events in the Netherlands, after Amsterdam.