The Netherlands is a country.
Netherlands . It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three island territories in the Caribbean.designated Bonaire , Sint Eustatius and Saba within ISO ISO 3166-1 . The name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands.Formally ` Holland ' refers only to two of the country 's twelve provinces : North Holland and South Holland . In 2013 , the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world , reflecting its high quality of life .