The Grote rivieren, literally translated ''Great (or Large) rivers'', is a
landform
A landform is a natural or anthropogenic land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, m ...
in the
Netherlands. Also, the term is commonly used for a divide in
Dutch culture
Dutch culture may refer to:
* used more narrowly, the Culture of the Netherlands
* used more widely, the culture of Dutch-speaking Europe, including:
**Dutch architecture
**Dutch literature
** Dutch music
** Dutch festivities
** Dutch folklore
S ...
linking to the broader Dutch-Flemish culture.
History
The Grote rivieren have throughout history been a dividing line across the Netherlands. At many points in time have the rivers formed a boundary between states or empires. Notable examples include the northern border of the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...
in the
Roman province of
Germania Inferior, and the border between the
Dutch Republic and
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
and later
Austrian Netherlands
The Austrian Netherlands nl, Oostenrijkse Nederlanden; french: Pays-Bas Autrichiens; german: Österreichische Niederlande; la, Belgium Austriacum. was the territory of the Burgundian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire between 1714 and 1797. The p ...
at various points in their contentious history. The latter of these historical examples also played a large role in the religious divide the rivers straddle.
Geography
The term Grote rivieren refers to the division of the Netherlands by the
Nederrijn,
Lek,
Waal
WAAL (99.1 FM "The Whale") is a commercial radio station licensed to Binghamton, New York. It airs a classic rock radio format and is owned by Townsquare Media. WAAL is the oldest FM radio station in the Binghamton metropolitan area. It is a ...
,
Merwede
The Merwede () etymology uncertain, possibly derived from the ancient Dutch ''Merwe'' or ''Merowe'', a word meaning "wide water") is the name of several connected stretches of river in the Netherlands, between the cities of Woudrichem, Dordrecht a ...
and
Meuse rivers, which dominate an area roughly 150 km in length from west to east and 25 km wide from north to south. The rivers form part of the
Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta which discharges into the North Sea. The rivers are the primary distributaries of the
Rhine and
Meuse rivers, flowing from the
Swiss Alps
The Alpine region of Switzerland, conventionally referred to as the Swiss Alps (german: Schweizer Alpen, french: Alpes suisses, it, Alpi svizzere, rm, Alps svizras), represents a major natural feature of the country and is, along with the Swis ...
and the
Langres plateau respectively.
Economy
The Grote rivieren are entirely navigable and serve important roles in the transport of goods in the region, as well as to areas higher upstream, such as the heavily industrialised
Rhine-Ruhr area in
Germany. In the Netherlands, the
Port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest port, is heavily dependent on the navigability of the rivers to transport goods into the
hinterland
Hinterland is a German word meaning "the land behind" (a city, a port, or similar). Its use in English was first documented by the geographer George Chisholm in his ''Handbook of Commercial Geography'' (1888). Originally the term was associate ...
.
To aid in the transport of goods through the Great rivers, many canals have been dug to improve connectivity with nearby cities, most notably the
Amsterdam-Rhine Canal, which links up the Grote rivieren with the cities of
Utrecht and
Amsterdam, including the
Port of Amsterdam
The port of Amsterdam ( nl, Haven van Amsterdam) is a seaport in Amsterdam in North Holland, Netherlands. It is the 4th busiest port in Europe by metric tonnes of cargo. The port is located on the bank of a former bay named the IJ and the N ...
.
Sociocultural meaning
By use of the
colloquialism
Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in convers ...
''above/below the great rivers'' the boundary created by the rivers is highlighted in a cultural sense. The major divergence here is the difference between the predominantly
Protestant north and the predominantly
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
southern provinces of
North Brabant
North Brabant ( nl, Noord-Brabant ; Brabantian: ; ), also unofficially called Brabant, is a province in the south of the Netherlands. It borders the provinces of South Holland and Gelderland to the north, Limburg to the east, Zeeland to the ...
and
Limburg. When the term is used in this sense,
Zeeland
, nl, Ik worstel en kom boven("I struggle and emerge")
, anthem = "Zeeuws volkslied"("Zeelandic Anthem")
, image_map = Zeeland in the Netherlands.svg
, map_alt =
, m ...
(the islands in the south-west), being mostly protestant, is often considered ''above''. This said, there are several catholic regions, mostly in
Zeelandic Flanders. Various cultural differences are associated with this border, including dialectical differences (such as the use of the so-called
Hard G in the north and the soft G in the south), and sociological ones (northerners being considered more direct, austere, and goal oriented, southerners more indirect, easy living, and status oriented).
Within the Netherlands, this cultural distinction is often considered more important than any cultural differences between the
Netherlands as a whole and the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium (
Flanders.
[
]
The cultural
divergence
In vector calculus, divergence is a vector operator that operates on a vector field, producing a scalar field giving the quantity of the vector field's source at each point. More technically, the divergence represents the volume density of t ...
s play a part in daily life within the Dutch-speaking region and they are factors in personal identification among its inhabitants.
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grote Rivieren
Cultural boundaries
Belgian culture
Colloquial terms
Dutch culture