The Netherlands has 12 provinces which represents the administrative layer between the national government and the local municipalities, having the responsibility for matters of subnational or regional importance. The most populous province is South Holland, with over 3.5 million inhabitants as of 2009. With approximately 381,000 inhabitants, Zeeland has the smallest population. In terms of area, Friesland is the largest province with a total area of 5,749km². If water is excluded, Gelderland is the largest province in terms of area at 4,972 km2. Utrecht is the smallest at 1,449 km2. In total about...

The States-Provincial (in Dutch: Provinciale Staten, abbreviated PS – commonly known as simply the Staten) is the provincial parliament and legislative assembly in each of the provinces of the Netherlands. It is elected for each province simultaneously once every four years and has the responsibility for matters of sub-national or regional importance. Each States-Provincial is directly elected by the electors within the relevant province, and the number of seats in each States-Provincial is proportional to its population. The States-Provincial originated as Estates assemblies in the Middle Ages...

The Fourth Estate (or fourth power) is a societal or political force or institution whose influence is not consistently or officially recognized. "Fourth Estate" most commonly refers to the news media, especially print journalism or "the press". Thomas Carlyle attributed the origin of the term to Edmund Burke, who used it in a parliamentary debate in 1787 on the opening up of press reporting of the House of Commons of Great Britain. Earlier writers have applied the term to lawyers, to the British queens consort (acting as a free agent, independent of the king), and to the proletariat. The term...

The White House china refers to the various patterns of china (porcelain) used for serving and eating food in the White House, home of the president of the United States. Different china services have been ordered and used by different presidential administrations. The White House collection of china is housed in the White House China Room. Not every administration created its own service, but portions of all china services created for the White House are now in the China Room collection. Some of the older china services are used for small private dinners in the President's Dining Room on the Second...

The White House (Russian: Белый дом, tr. Bely dom; IPA: [ˈbʲɛlɨj ˈdom]; Officially: The House of the Government of the Russian Federation, Russian: Дом Правительства Российской Федерации, tr. Dom pravitelstva Rossiiskoi Federatsii), also known as the Russian White House, is a government building in Moscow. It stands on the Krasnopresnenskaya embankment. The building serves as the primary office of the government of Russia and is the official workplace of the Russian Prime Minister == History == Originally called The House of Soviets, it was designed by the architects Dmitry Chechulin and ...