Iranians in the Netherlands
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (35,395) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and other urban areas | |
| Languages | |
| Dutch, Persian, Azerbaijani, Armenian, Kurdish | |
| Religion | |
|
Islam,Atheism Agnosticism,Christianity,Zoroastrianism |
|
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Iranian citizens abroad |
Iranians in the Netherlands form one of the newer and larger populations of the Iranian (Persian) diaspora in Europe.
Iranians in the Netherlands are sometimes referred to by hyphenated terms such as "Dutch-Iranians", "Iranian-Dutch", "Dutch-Persian", or "Persian-Dutch". Similar terms Iraanse Nederlanders, Nederlandse Iraniërs, and Perzische-Nederlanders may be found in Dutch-language media. However, one scholar who uses the term "Dutch-Iranians" also expresses reservations over the validity of such a "hyphenated notion of identity" in the Dutch context, in comparison to the less problematic term "Iranian American".
Other collective terms used to refer to the community include Iraanse gemeenschap, Perzische gemeenschap, and Perzen.
Though the Netherlands had a 'Persian population' since the early seventeenth century, mostly Armenian merchants ("Persianen"), which by the beginning of the nineteenth century had largely dissolved into the larger Dutch population, in more recent times other European countries such as Germany and France have had Persian communities since the early 20th century, most of the Iranian population in the Netherlands is of relatively recent provenance; virtually all came to the country after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The overall migration was quite significant relative to the whole size of Iranian emigration to Europe; from 1990–1999, the Netherlands was Europe's second most-popular destination for Iranian asylum seekers, behind Germany. However, from 1981 to 2001, only 1,292 were formally recognised as "invited refugees" (Uitgenodigde vluchtelingen), the vast majority in the period 1987-1990.
As of 2009[update], statistics of the Dutch Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek showed:
For a total of 30,617 persons (16,758 men, 13,855 women). This represented nearly double the 1996 total of 16,478 persons. Numerically, most of the growth was in the foreign-born segment of the population, whose numbers increased from 14,628 over the period in question; however, the rate of growth was fastest in the locally born segment of the population, which almost tripled in size from 1,850 persons.
Iran is a largely Muslim country, a fact reflected in the backgrounds of Iranian migrants to the Netherlands. However, most migrants do not continue to practise their religion. Those who do often find themselves viewed as threats and suffer exclusion from Dutch society; this trend strengthened with the growth of political Islam in the 1980s.
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