The Netherlands Antilles previously known as the Netherlands West Indies or Dutch Antilles/West Indies, is an island group and an autonomous part of the Netherlands (2005 est. pop. 220,000), 371 sq mi (961 sq km), West Indies. Formerly known as the Dutch West Indies and Netherlands West Indies, it is part of the Lesser Antilles and consists of two groups of islands in the Caribbean Sea: Curaçao and Bonaire, just off the Venezuelan coast, and Sint Eustatius, Saba and Sint Maarten, located in the Leeward Islands, southeast of the Virgin Islands and east of Puerto Rico.

Willemstad, on Curaçao, is the capital of the Netherlands Antilles. The land is mainly hilly and semiarid; the climate is tropical with northeast trade winds.

The economy is dependent on tourism, the refining and transshipment of Venezuelan petroleum, and offshore financial services. The Netherlands Antilles have a higher per capita income and a more developed infrastructure than neighboring countries. Poor soil and scanty water resources hamper agricultural production, which is largely limited to aloes, sorghum, peanuts, fruits, and vegetables. There is also some light manufacturing. The monarch of the Netherlands is the titular head of state and is represented by a governor-general. There is a 22-seat popularly elected legislature headed by a prime minister.

When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, the region was inhabited by Arawaks and Caribs. Both the leeward (Alonso de Ojeda, 1499) and windward (Christopher Columbus, 1493) island groups were discovered and initially settled by Spain. In the 17th century, the islands were conquered by the Dutch West India Company and were used as military outposts and trade bases, most prominent the slave trade. Slavery was abolished in 1863 and the economy faltered until the oil industry began to flourish in the 20th century.

In 1954, the status of the islands was up-graded from a colonial territory to a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands as a separate country within the kingdom. The island of Aruba was part of the Netherlands Antilles until 1986, when it was granted status aparte, becoming yet another part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands as a separate country within the kingdom.. In 2004 a government commission recommended splitting up the Netherlands Antilles, giving St. Martin and Curaçao autonomy and establishing direct Dutch rule over the other islands. In a series of referendums islanders largely seconded this proposal, which has yet to take effect.The Netherlands Antilles was scheduled to be dissolved as a unified political entity on 15 December 2008, so that the five constituent islands would attain new constitutional statuses within the Kingdom of the Netherlands,[2] but this dissolution has been postponed to an indefinite future date.

A large part of the Netherlands Antilleans descends from European colonists and African slaves that were brought and traded here from the 17th to 19th century. The rest of the population originates from other Caribbean islands, Latin America, East Asia and elsewhere in the world.

Papiamentu is predominant on Curaçao and Bonaire (as well as the neighboring island of Aruba). This creole descends from Portuguese and West African languages with a strong admixture of Dutch, plus subsequent lexical contributions from Spanish and English.

After a decades-long debate, English and Papiamentu have been made official languages alongside Dutch in early March 2007. Legislation is produced in Dutch but parliamentary debate is in Papiamentu or English, depending on the island. Due to the islands' closeness to South America, Spanish is becoming increasingly known and used throughout the archipelago.

The majority of the population are followers of the Christian faith, mostly Roman Catholic. Curaçao also hosts a sizeable group of followers of the Jewish faith, descendants of a Portuguese group of Sephardic Jews that arrived from Amsterdam and Brazil in 1654.

Most Netherlands Antilleans are Dutch citizens and this status permits and encourages the young and university-educated to emigrate to the Netherlands. This exodus is considered to be to the islands' detriment as it creates a brain drain. On the other hand, immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Anglophone Caribbean and Colombia have increased their presence in recent years.

The origins of the population and location of the islands give the Netherlands Antilles a mixed culture.Tourism and overwhelming media presence from the United States has increased the regional United States influence. On all the islands, the holiday of Carnival is, like in many Caribbean and Latin American countries, an important one. Festivities include "jump-up" parades with beautifully colored costumes, floats, and live bands as well as beauty contests and other competitions. Carnival on the islands also includes a middle-of-the-night j'ouvert (juvé) parade that ends at sunrise with the burning of a straw King Momo, cleansing the island of sins and bad luck.

For more information, see the following links:

• Universities of the Netherlands Antilles
• The Official Web Site of the Government of the Netherlands Antilles
• Central Bank of the Netherlands Antilles
• National Archives of the Netherlands Antilles (Dutch)
• National Archaeological Anthropological Museum of the Netherlands Antilles
• Meteorological Service of the Netherlands Antilles
• Postal Services
• Coast Guard of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba