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The Dutch units of measurement used today are those of the metric system. Before the 19th century, a wide variety of different weights and measures were used by the various Dutch towns and provinces. Despite the country's small size, there was a lack of uniformity. During the Dutch Golden Age, these weights and measures accompanied the Dutch to the farthest corners of their colonial empire, including South Africa, New Amsterdam and the Dutch East Indies. Units of weight included the pond, ons and last. There was also an apothecaries' system of weights. The mijl and roede were measurements of distance. Smaller distances were measured in units based on parts of the body – the el, the voet, the palm and the duim. Area was measured by the morgen, hont, roede and voet. Units of volume included the okshoofd, aam, anker, stoop, and mingel.[1] At the start of the 19th century the Dutch adopted a unified metric system, but it was based on a modified version of the metric system, different from the system used today. In 1869, this was realigned with the international metric system. These old units of measurement have disappeared, but they remain a colourful legacy of the Netherlands' maritime and commercial importance and survive today in a number of Dutch sayings and expressions.
When Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800 AD, his empire included most of modern-day Western Europe including the Netherlands and Belgium. Charlemagne introduced a standard system of measurement across his domains using names such as "pound" and "foot". At the Treaty of Verdun, the empire was divided between Charlemagne's three grandsons and Lothair received the central portion, stretching from the Netherlands in the north to Burgundy and Provence in the south.
Further fragmentation followed and with it various parts of the empire modified the units of measures in a manner that suited the local lord. By the start of the religious wars, the territories that made up the Netherlands, still part of the Holy Roman Empire, had passed into the lordship of the King of Spain. Each territory had its own variant of the original Carolingian units of measure. Under the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the seven Protestant territories that owed a nominal allegiance to the Prince of Orange seceded from the Holy Roman Empire and established their own confederacy but each kept its own system of measures.
| Unit | Symbol | Division | Grains | Grams |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| medicinal pound (medicinaal pond) | lb | 12 ons | 5760 | 373.241 72 |
| medicinal ounce (medicinaal ons) | ℥ | 8 drachmen | 480 | 31.103 477 |
| dram (drachme) | ℨ | 3 scrupels | 60 | 3.887 9346 |
| scruple (scrupel) | ℈ | 20 grein | 20 | 1.295 9782 |
| grain (grein) | gr. | 1 | 0.064 79891 |
Morgen
Hont
Roede
Voet
Okshoofd
Aam
Anker
Stoop
Mingel
In 1792, the southern part of the Netherlands was incorporated into the First French Republic, and in 1807, the rest of the Netherlands was incorporated into what had now become the First French Empire and as a result the Netherlands was forced to accept the French units of measurement. In 1812, France replaced the original metric system with the mesures usuelles.
Under the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Kingdom of the Netherlands which included Belgium and Luxembourg was established as a buffer state against France. Under the Royal decree of 27 March 1817 (Koningklijk besluit van den 27 Maart 1817), the newly formed Kingdom of the Netherlands abandoned the mesures usuelles in favour of the "Dutch" metric system (Nederlands metrisch stelsel) in which metric units were given the names of units of measure that were then in use. Examples include:[15]
Length
Area
Volume
Weight
In 1816, the Netherlands and France were the only countries in the world that were using variations of the metric system. By the late 1860s, the German Zollverein and many other neighbouring countries had adopted the metric system, so in 1869 the modern names were adopted (Wet van 7 April 1869, Staatsblad No.57). A few of the older names remained officially in use, but they were eliminated when the system was further standardised by the 1937 Act on Weights and Measures (IJkwet). Nevertheless the ons and pond are still used colloquially to always mean respectively 100 grams and 500 grams.
Today the Netherlands uses the International system of units (SI).
The metric system in the Netherlands has virtually the same nomenclature as in English (to be noted that English got metre from French), except:
On 30 October 2006, the Weights and Measures Act was replaced by the Metrology Act. The organisation currently responsible for weights and measures in the Netherlands is a private company called the Nederlands Meetinstituut (NMi). Literally, this means "Dutch Institute of Measures", but the organisation uses its Dutch name in English. The company was created in 1989 when the Metrology Service (Dienst van het IJkwezen) was privatised. At first, the sole shareholder was the Dutch government, but in 2001 the sole shareholder became TNO Bedrijven, a holding company for TNO, the Dutch Organisation for Applied Scientific Research.[16][17]
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