What is Low Countries?
{{About|the region in [[Western Europe]]|the economic union|Benelux}}[[File:Benelux satellite image.PNG|300px|thumb|The Low Countries as seen from space]] The '''Low Countries''' is a term used to refer to a geographical region, especially during the [[Middle Ages]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xMZI2QEer9QC&pg=PA98|title=Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Vol. III: The Perspective of the World|last=Braudel|first=Fernand|date=1992-12-23|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-08116-1|language=en}}</ref> This region is around the [[river delta|deltas]] of the [[Rhine]], the [[Scheldt]] and the [[Meuse (department)|Meuse]] (''Maas''). Today, the Low Countries consists of the [[Netherlands]], [[Belgium]], [[Luxembourg]], and the parts of Lower-Saxony (in [[Germany]]) that are in the region. Sometimes, the [[France|French]] Netherlands ([[Nord-Pas-de-Calais]]) are included as well.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=286ECgAAQBAJ&pg=PA17|title=Sparks of Reason: Vernacular Rationalism in the Low Countries, 1550-1670|last=Buys|first=Ruben|date=2015|publisher=Uitgeverij Verloren|isbn=978-90-8704-515-9|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ylY7FjtUX-QC&pg=PA96|title=Regionalism, Economic Integration and Security in Asia: A Political Economy Approach|last=Park|first=Jehoon|last2=Pempel|first2=T. J.|last3=Kim|first3=Heungchong|date=2011-01-01|publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing|isbn=978-0-85793-127-6|language=en}}</ref> The [[Dutch language|Dutch]] name of the Netherlands is ''Nederland'', which literally means ''low country''. The region was usually referred to as ''de Nederlanden''.<ref>{{Cite web|title=History of Luxembourg: Primary Documents - EuroDocs|url=https://eudocs.lib.byu.edu/index.php/History_of_Luxembourg:_Primary_Documents|access-date=2024-09-14|website=eudocs.lib.byu.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/statisticsofmili00grea|title=Statistics of the military effort of the British