Netherlands Antilles

The Netherlands Antilles (Dutch: Nederlandse Antillen, pronounced [ˈneːdərlɑntsə ʔɑnˈtɪlə(n)] ; Papiamento: Antia Hulandes), also known as the Dutch Antilles, was a constituent Caribbean country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands consisting of the islands of Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten in the Lesser Antilles, and Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao in the Leeward Antilles. The country came into being in 1954 as the autonomous successor of the Dutch colony of Curaçao and Dependencies, and it was dissolved in 2010, when Aruba (in 1986), Sint Maarten and Curaçao gained the status of constituent countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Bonaire gained the status of special municipalities of the Netherlands as the Caribbean Netherlands. The neighboring.