Gelderland (Gelre; Guelders)

   The county of “Gelre and the city of Zutphen” were the property of the counts of Wassenberg and, after the mid-14th century, temporarily in the possession of the Duke of Gulik (now in Germany). The counts of Wassenberg contested the power of the neighboring bishop of Utrecht and the counts of Holland. In the end, the region, with cities such as Arnhem (its capital) and Nijmegen, came into the possession of Emperor Charles V, who united the 17 counties and duchies of the Nether lands in 1548. During the Revolt of the Netherlands, Gelderland sided with William I of Orange. Until the Batavian Revolution, it remained one of the seven sovereign provinces that formed the Dutch Republic. After 1814, Gelderland became a province of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

   Gelderland’s landscape is varied, with rivers such as the Rhine (the Betuwe area) and the IJssel, the forest of the Veluwe (part of which is a national park since 1935, with the famous Kroller-Muller Museum of Modern Art), and many castles. It is the largest province of the Netherlands and has about 1,971,000 inhabitants. Some other important cities are Apeldoorn, Ede, Doetinchem (in the Achter hoek), Harderwijk (with a university until 1812), and Wageningen.