17 Facts About Spanish Netherlands

1. The Spanish Netherlands is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and it plays host to a number of international organizations, especially in the legal sector, such as the International Court of Justice.

2. The Spanish Netherlands made one last effort to reconquer the North, and the Dutch used their navy to enlarge their colonial trade routes to the detriment of Spain.

3. The other regions of the Spanish Netherlands had grown wealthy and entrepreneurial.

4. The Spanish Netherlands controlled the mouths of the Scheldt, the Rhine and the Meuse Rivers.

5. The Spanish Netherlands lost its position as the trading centre of Northern Europe to London.

6. Thus, the people of the Spanish Netherlands could get on with their peacetime pursuits.

7. The Catholic Spanish Netherlands responded with harsh persecution and introduced the Inquisition of the Netherlands.

8. The Spanish Netherlands successfully suppressed it there, and Lutheranism only flourished in east Friesland.

9. The Spanish Netherlands was an especially rich unit of the Spanish realm, especially after the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis of 1559; it ended four decades of warfare between France and Spain and allowed Spain to reposition its army.

10. The Spanish Netherlands formed a new economic alliance with Belgium and Luxembourg, the Benelux, and all three became founding members of the European Union and NATO.

11. The Spanish Netherlands ranked the highest for monthly, weekly and daily recreational non-sports physical activities in 2013 in the EU at 89 percent, 83 percent and 43 percent respectively.

12. The Spanish Netherlands has a lot of medium-density housing, apartments two to six floors high, and one of the highest rates of social housing in Europe.

13. The Spanish Netherlands was ruled for six years by Bourbon France and occupied for another seven by British and Dutch troops.

14. The Spanish Netherlands was one of the six founding members of the European Union.

15. The Spanish Netherlands is the world's biggest exporter of cheese; its dairy industry worth a mind-blowing €7 billion.

16. The Spanish Netherlands has produced many well-known painters including famous names such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Vincent van Gogh, and Willem de Kooning.

17. The Spanish Netherlands has the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world, according to the International Monetary Fund.