After 1945

The post war years were spent patching up the damage of occupation. Rotterdam was rapidly rebuilt and the dykes (blown in the war) were repaired.

The former Dutch colonies of Java and Sumatra, taken by the Japanese at the outbreak of the war, were ruled by a nationalist Republican government that refused to recognize Dutch sovereignty and declared itself independent in 1945. After 4 years of fighting and negotiations the independence of Indonesia was recognized at the end of 1949. Surinam became independent in 1975. The Netherlands Antilles decided to remain part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands while retaining autonomous control of its government. In 1953 an unusually high tide pushed over Zeelands sea defenses by a westerly wind, flooding 40.000 acres of land and drowning over 1800 people. The result was the building of the Delta Project, closing off the western part of the Scheldt and Maas estuaries with massive sea dykes.

The main storm surge barrier on the Oosterschelde was finally completed in 1986. Reclaimed polders of Flevoland were soon built upon to absorb more of the excess urban population. The squatting movement starting in the 1960s as a objection to the wholesale destruction of low cost urban housing and that city centers should not become the preserve of big business. The squatters won the argument by the mid-1980s. Urban planning had become a much more thoughtful affair with attention given to both the urban environment in general and the need to keep people living in the city centers. All governments since 1945 have been coalitions, with parties differing mainly over economic pollicies. The governmental system that has so effectively incorporated the disparate elements of a modern and divers state-Catholic and Protestant, management and union, city and country, socialist and conservative- has earned the Netherlands a well deserved reputation for comfortable toleration.

The Netherlands and 10 other European countries voted in May 1998 to adopt the Euro as the new single European currency. This continued Dutch policies that have been consistently in favor of European unification.