Нидерланд провинциясы Зеланд суреттемесі

Province of the Netherlands
the Dutch province

Zeeland (; ; historical English exonym Zealand) is the westernmost and least populous province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the southwest of the country, borders North Brabant to the east, South Holland to the north, as well as the country of Belgium to the south and west. It consists of a number of islands and peninsulas (hence its name, meaning "Sealand") and a strip bordering the Flemish provinces of East and West Flanders. Its capital is Middelburg with a population of 48,544 as of November 2019, although the largest municipality in Zeeland is Terneuzen (population 54,589). Zeeland has two seaports: Vlissingen and Terneuzen. Its area is , of which is water; it had a population of about 391,000 as of January 2023. The country of New Zealand was named after Zeeland after it was sighted by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman.

Zeeland was a contested area between the counts of Holland and Flanders until 1299, when the last count of Holland died. The Counts of Hainaut then gained control of the County of Zeeland, followed by the counts of Bavaria, Burgundy, and Habsburg. After 1585, Zeeland followed, as one of the 7 independent provinces, the fate of the Northern part of The Netherlands. In 1432 it became part of the Low Countries possessions of Philip the Good of Burgundy, the later Seventeen Provinces. Through marriage, the Seventeen Provinces became the property of the Habsburgs in 1477. In the Eighty Years' War, Zeeland was on the side of the Union of Utrecht, and became one of the United Provinces. The area now called Zeeuws Vlaanderen (or Zeelandic Flanders) was not part of Zeeland, but a part of the county of Flanders (still under Habsburg control) that was conquered by the United Provinces, hence called Staats Vlaanderen (see: Generality Lands). After the French occupation (see département Bouches de l'Escaut) and the formation of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815, the present province Zeeland was formed. During World War II, Zeeland was occupied by Nazi Germany between June 1940 and November 1944. The catastrophic North Sea flood of 1953, which killed over 1800 people in Zeeland, led to the construction of the protective Delta Works.

The province of Zeeland is a large river delta situated at the mouth of several major rivers, namely Scheldt ('Schelde'), Rhine ('Rijn') and Meuse ('Maas'). Most of the province lies below sea level and was reclaimed from the sea by inhabitants over time. What used to be a muddy landscape, flooding at high tide and reappearing at low tide, became a series of small man made hills that stayed dry at all times. The people of the province would later connect the hills by creating dikes, which led to a chain of dry land that later grew into bigger islands and gave the province its current shape. The shape of the islands has changed over time at the hands of both people and nature. The North Sea flood of 1953 inundated vast amounts of land that were only partially reclaimed. The subsequent construction of the Delta Works also changed the face of the province. The infrastructure, although very distinct by the number of bridges, tunnels and dams, has not shaped the geography of the province so much as the geography of the province has shaped its infrastructure. The dams, tunnels and bridges that are currently a vital part of the province's road system were constructed over the span of decades and came to replace old ferry lines. The final touch to this process came in 2003 when the Western Scheldt Tunnel was opened. It was the first solid connection between both banks of the Western Scheldt and ended the era of water separating the islands and peninsulas of Zeeland. Zeeland consists of several islands and peninsulas. These are, from north to south, Schouwen Duiveland, Tholen, Noord Beveland, Walcheren and Zuid Beveland. It also includes a strip of land bordering the Belgian region of Flanders, the Zeelandic Flanders.

As of 1 January 2023, Zeeland had a population of 391,124 and a population density of It is the least populous and the 3rd least densely populated province of the Netherlands.

Zeeland is mainly a Protestant region; Calvinism is dominant. The Dutch Bible Belt begins in Zeeland. There are also adherents of the Roman Catholic Church. After being long part of the vast Franco Flemish Roman Catholic Diocese of Cambrai, Zeeland got its own bishopric, the Diocese of Middelburg, on 5 December 1559, which was suppressed in 1603, its territory being merged into the Apostolic Vicariate of Batavia, only to be 'restored' on 22 March 1803 as the Apostolic Vicariate of Breda, which was promoted to the present large (yet counting few faithful) Diocese of Breda, whose See is in the other part, western North Brabant, and enlarged further in 1955, gaining territory from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Haarlem–Amsterdam.

The Provincial Executive (Gedeputeerde Staten) of Zeeland and the King's Commissioner (Commissaris van de Koning) of Zeeland are the provincial executive. Han Polman, member of D66, has been the King's Commissioner of Zeeland since 2013. As of the 2007 provincial election a coalition consisted of CDA, SGP, ChristianUnion and GreenLeft, with 20 of 39 seats. As of the 2011 provincial election a coalition consisted of VVD, PvdA, CDA and SGP, with 24 of 39 seats. As of the 2015 provincial election a coalition consisted of CDA, VVD, SGP and PvdA, with 22 of 39 seats. As of the 2019 provincial election the same coalition consists of CDA, VVD, SGP and PvdA, with 20 of 39 seats.

The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the region was 13.6 billion € in 2018, accounting for 1.8% of the Netherlands economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was €30,900 or 102% of the EU27 average in the same year.

Nehalennia is a mythological goddess of an ancient religion known around the province of Zeeland. Her worship dates back at least to the 2nd century BC, and flourished in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. Zeeland, North Dakota is another town named for this province and whose earliest settlers were of Dutch heritage. Paramaribo, the capital and largest city of Suriname, has a Fort Zeelandia, the former Fort Willoughby during British colonization. Fort Zeelandia was a fortress built over ten years from 1624 to 1634 by the Dutch East India Company, in the town of Anping (Tainan) on the island of Formosa, present day Taiwan, during their 38 year rule over the western part of it.