The States-General of the Netherlands (Dutch: Staten-Generaal) is the bicameral legislature of the Netherlands, consisting of the Senate (Eerste Kamer) and the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer). The parliament meets in at the Binnenhof in The Hague. The archaic Dutch word "staten" originally related to the feudal classes ("estates") in which medieval European societies were stratified (the clergy, the nobility and the commons). As in the United Kingdom the meaning of "the Commons" widened from just the social class, to the assembly in which those were represented; so in Dutch "staten" became to mean the political body in which the respective classes were (more or less) united. Dutch explorers named several places "Staten Island", a name that derives from the name of the parliament.
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Famous quotes containing the word netherlands:
“Greece is a sort of American vassal; the Netherlands is the country of American bases that grow like tulip bulbs; Cuba is the main sugar plantation of the American monopolies; Turkey is prepared to kow-tow before any United States pro-consul and Canada is the boring second fiddle in the American symphony.”
—Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (1909–1989)