page_title: Dutch Empire
section_title: Placenames
hierarchical_section_title: Dutch Empire / Legacy / Placenames
caption_attribution_description: English: A photograph of the Stadthuys and Christ Church in Malacca, Malaysia
context_page_description: The Dutch colonial empire comprised the overseas territories and trading posts controlled and administered by Dutch chartered companies—mainly the Dutch West India Company and the Dutch East India Company—and subsequently by the Dutch Republic, and by the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands after 1815.
  It was initially a trade-based system which derived most of its influence from merchant enterprise and from Dutch control of international maritime shipping routes through strategically placed outposts, rather than from expansive territorial ventures.
  With a few notable exceptions, the majority of the Dutch colonial empire's overseas holdings consisted of coastal forts, factories, and port settlements with varying degrees of incorporation of their hinterlands and surrounding regions. Dutch chartered companies often dictated that their possessions be kept as confined as possible in order to avoid unnecessary expense, and while some such as the Dutch Cape Colony and Dutch East Indies expanded anyway, others remained undeveloped, isolated trading centres dependent on an indigenous host-nation.
context_section_description: Some towns of New York and areas of New York City, once part of the colony of New Netherland have names of Dutch origin, such as Brooklyn (after Breukelen), Flushing (after Vlissingen), the Bowery (after Bouwerij, construction site), Harlem (after Haarlem), Coney Island (from Conyne Eylandt, modern Dutch spelling Konijneneiland: Rabbit island) and Staten Island (meaning "Island of the States"). The last Director-General of the colony of New Netherland, Pieter Stuyvesant, has bequeathed his name to a street, a neighborhood and a few schools in New York City, and the town of Stuyvesant. Many of the towns and cities along the Hudson in upstate New York have placenames with Dutch origins (for example Yonkers, Hoboken, Haverstraw, Claverack, Staatsburg, Catskill, Kinderhook, Coeymans, Rensselaer, Watervliet). Nassau County, one of the four that make up Long Island, is also of Dutch origin. The Schuylkill river that flows into the Delaware at Philadelphia is also a Dutch name meaning hidden or skulking river.
  Many towns and cities in Suriname share names with cities in the Netherlands, such as Alkmaar and Groningen. The capital of Curaçao is named Willemstad and the capitals of both Saint Eustatius and Aruba are named Oranjestad. The first is named after the Dutch Prince Willem II van Oranje-Nassau (William of Orange-Nassau) and the two others after the first part of the current Dutch royal dynasty.
  Many of South Africa's major cities have Dutch names i.e. Johannesburg, Kaapstad, Vereeniging, Bloemfontein and Vanderbijlpark.
  The country name New Zealand originated with Dutch cartographers, who called the islands Nova Zeelandia, after the Dutch province of Zeeland. British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicized the name to New Zealand.
  
  The Australian island state Tasmania is named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who made the first reported European sighting of the island on 24 November 1642. He first named the island Anthony van Diemen's Land after his sponsor Anthony van Diemen, the Governor of the Dutch East Indies. The name was later shortened to Van Diemen's Land by the British. It was officially renamed in honor of its first European discoverer on 1 January 1856. Arnhem Land is named after the Dutch ship named Arnhem. The captain of the Arnhem (Willem van Coolsteerdt) also named the large island, east of Arnhem Groote Eylandt, in modern Dutch spelling Groot Eiland: Large Island. There are many more Dutch geographical names in Australia.
caption: The Stadthuys in Malacca, Malaysia, believed to be the oldest Dutch building in Asia[86]
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