The Netherlands
During the 17th century it was called the Dutch Republic of the seven united Netherlands, even though there were 8 counties, Drenthe was regarded to poor.
It was a confederation of 7 provences, which had their own governments and were very individual.
During the 17th century (the Dutch golden age) Dutch trade, science, military, and art were among the most acclaimed in the world.
The province Holland was generally being used by sailors to explain which county they came from.
Nowadays a lot of the Dutch use it as if Holland and the Netherlands are the same, but just like Scottish people might be offended when people refer them as being part of England, so do people living in other provinces in the Netherlands dislike being called living in Holland.
The safest thing is to say the Netherlands. Today we have twelve provinces of which two are called: south-holland and north-holland. So when referring to Holland these provences could be meant and cause possible confusion.
Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands and The Hague is where our government is located.
In Holland we speak Dutch and in germany they say (wir sprechen Deutsch) Which means we speak German.
source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_government_of_the_Dutch_Republic
trade
From about 1600 to 1750, Holland had the largest merchant fleet of any nation, and the highest Gross National Product per capita in the world.
De Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) (1602-1800), was a Dutch trading organisation with a monopoly on the overseas Asian trade, which it would keep for two centuries, and it became the world's largest commercial enterprise of the 17th century. Spices were imported in bulk and brought huge profits due to the efforts and risks involved and seemingly insatiable demand. This is remembered to this day in the Dutch word peperduur (as expensive as pepper), meaning something is very expensive, reflecting the prices of spices at the time. To finance the growing trade within the region, the Bank of Amsterdam was established in 1609, the precursor to, if not the first true central bank
Below a link with some interesting background on the naval warfare that took place between the UK and the Netherlands.
A recent Dutch movie about the famous pirate Michiel de Ruijter is also worth a watch!
http://www.heardutchhere.net/dunaval.html
Great overview of the history of the Netherlands can be found on this website:
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio/timeline-dutch-history
Below a picture of the 17th century beautiful style building that Amsterdam is famous for, clearly showing that Amsterdam was booming during the 17th century.
The canals were also dug during the golden age to aid in the transport of goods and for instance beer.
source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canals_of_Amsterdam