Dutch diaspora

The Dutch diaspora is the movement, migration, or scattering of the Dutch away from the Netherlands.

Emigration from the Netherlands has been happening for at least the last eight centuries. In several former Dutch colonies and trading settlements, there are ethnic groups of partial Dutch ancestry. Emigrants from the Netherlands since the Second World War went mainly to the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and until the 1970s South Africa. There are recognisable Dutch immigrant communities in these countries. Smaller numbers of Dutch immigrants can be found in most developed countries. In the last decade, short-range cross-border migration has developed along the Netherlands borders with Belgium and Germany. The main motive is the lower price of housing, especially single-family houses, in these countries: the buyers commute to work in the Netherlands, and the children may attend school there. Nevertheless, for official purposes they are counted as emigrants from the Netherlands, and as immigrants in Germany and Belgium.

The first big wave of Dutch immigrants to leave the Low Countries came from present day Northern Belgium as they wanted to escape the heavily urbanised cities in Western Flanders. They arrived in Brandenburg in 1157. Due to this, the area is known as "Fläming" (Fleming) in reference to the Duchy that these immigrants came from. Because of a number of devastating floods in the provinces of Zeeland and Holland in the 12th century, large numbers of farmers migrated to The Wash in England, the delta of the Gironde in France, around Bremen, Hamburg and western North Rhine-Westphalia. Until the late 16th century, many Dutchmen and women (invited by the German margrave) moved to the delta of the Elbe, around Berlin, where they dried swamps, canalized rivers and build numerous dikes. Today, the Berlin dialect still bears some Dutch features.

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