Dutch colonial empire

The Dutch colonial empire comprised overseas territories and trading posts under Dutch control from the early seventeenth to the late twentieth century, administered first by chartered companies, chiefly the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company, and later by the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It grew out of maritime trading expeditions that followed the Dutch Republics de facto independence from the Spanish Empire, and in 1602 the States General consolidated several trading ventures into the semi-state-owned Dutch East India Company, which held a monopoly over Asian trade. Unlike its Spanish and Portuguese rivals, the Dutch empire was initially built on control of shipping routes through strategic trading outposts rather than large-scale territorial conquest, though by the mid-seventeenth century its companies exercised quasi-governmental powers to make treaties, wage war and administer territory. At its height around 1652 it held colonies or outposts across eastern North America, the Caribbean, Suriname and Brazil, western and southern Africa, mainland India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Japan and Taiwan. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/