The Dutch Democracy

The stops

Walk them in order; each story plays when you reach its pin.

Map of the 10 stops on The Dutch Democracy

1
Stop 1
A Walk Through Dutch Democracy
A village that never earned city rights ended up running a country, and inventing one of the most stubbornly patient political systems in Europe.
2
Stop 2
Who Was Allowed to Vote
The constitution of 1848 gave parliament real power, then handed the vote to about one adult man in ten and made everybody else wait.
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3
Stop 3
The Torentje
Inn, wine cellar, caretaker's house and seat of the prime minister. After seven centuries, it took a fire officer to empty the building.
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4
Stop 4
Johan Rudolf Thorbecke
An outsider from Zwolle rewrote the constitution in 1848, and he wanted the vote kept to taxpayers only.
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5
Stop 5
The Eerste Kamer
The Dutch senate was created to please the Belgian nobility, outlived that union by two centuries, and can only say yes or no.
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6
Stop 6
Aletta Jacobs and the Word That Was Added
A doctor read the constitution closely, found no mention of men, and asked for the vote. Parliament's answer was to add the word.
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7
Stop 7
The Tweede Kamer
For more than one hundred and seventy years the Dutch parliament debated in a stadholder's ballroom, and any party with two thirds of a percent still gets a seat.
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8
Stop 8
The Night of Schmelzer
A party leader toppled a prime minister from his own party at four in the morning, and the Dutch have been naming that night after him ever since.
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9
Stop 9
The Red Pencil
One of the most digitised countries in the world votes with a wooden booth and a pencil, and it chose to go back on purpose.
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10
Stop 10
The Binnenhof
A hunting lodge that grew into a parliament by accident, now wrapped in scaffolding for a rebuild that will run past 2028.
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