Nearly 200 nationalities call Netherlands home

There are nearly 200 nationalities living in the Netherlands. More than 1.8 million people living in the Netherlands were not born in the country.

This is according to the Multi-culture map done by Tubantia based on information from Statistics Netherlands. According to the map, the largest groups of people with at least one non-Dutch parents are Turks, Surinamese and Moroccans. The number or born Turks in the Netherlands is about the same as the entire population of Almere. The number of Surinamese can be compared to the population of Breda and the Moroccan community to the population of Nijmegen. The smallest groups are from Tuvalu, Palau and Guam – three exotic island groups in the Pacific Ocean, with one person each living in the Netherlands.

The number of people with at lease one non-Dutch parent increased with more than half a million between 1996 and 2014. A large part of the increase comes from Eastern European countries like Bulgaria, Poland and the Baltic states and from refugees entering the country, especially from Afghanistan and Syria. The largest part comes from Bulgaria – the number of Bulgarians living in the Netherlands is 16 times higher than in 1996.  Almost all nationalities showed an increase in the past period.

Of the few nationalities that showed a decrease, Indonesia showed the largest with the number of Indonesian born people decreasing with 16 percent last year. Other number of people from Hong Kong, Austria and Germany also reduced. The number of Surinamese stayed about the same since 196.

At their arrival in the Netherlands, many immigrants choose to live in cities and neighborhoods where there are already many of there compatriots. They prefer living close to family and in an environment where their customs and traditions are not seen as strange. They often also do not have a large variety to choose from in the housing market due to limited financial possibilities. The location of work also plays an important role, especially for the group of European migrants that come to the Netherlands for work, reports NLTimes.