Historically, the province dates from states of theHoly Roman Empire and takes its name from the nearby German city ofGeldern. According to theWichard saga, the Lords of Pont fought and killed adragon in 878 AD, and named the town they founded after the death-rattle of the dragon: "Gelre!"[9]
The County ofGuelders arose out of theFrankishpagusHamaland in the 11th century around castles nearRoermond andGeldern. The counts of Gelre acquired theBetuwe andVeluwe regions and, through marriage, theCounty of Zutphen. Thus the counts of Guelders laid the foundation for a territorial power that, through control of theRhine,Waal,Meuse andIJssel rivers, was to play an important role in the laterMiddle Ages. The geographical position of their territory dictated the external policy of the counts during the following centuries; they were committed to the interests of theHoly Roman Empire and to expansion south and west.
Further enlarged by the acquisition of the imperial city of Nijmegen in the 13th century, the countship was raised to a duchy in 1339 by the Holy Roman EmperorLouis IV. After 1379, the duchy was ruled fromJülich and by the counts ofEgmond andCleves. The duchy resistedBurgundian domination, butWilliam, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg was forced to cede it toCharles V in 1543, after which it formed part of the Burgundian-Habsburg hereditary lands.[10]
Gelderland can roughly be divided into four geographical regions: theVeluwe in the north, the Rivierenland including theBetuwe in the southwest, theAchterhoek (literally meaning the "back corner") or Graafschap (which originally meansearldom or county) in the east and the city-region of Arnhem and Nijmegen in the centre-south.
Thegross domestic product (GDP) of the region was €78.3 billion in 2018, accounting for 10.1% of the Netherlands' economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was €33,000 or 110% of theEU27 average in the same year.[12]
In 2015, 23.2% of the population belonged to theProtestant Church in the Netherlands, while 21.6% wereRoman Catholic, 3.6% wereMuslim, and 5.3% adhered to other churches or faiths. Close to half of the population (46.3%) identified as non-religious.
In the 2001 movieA Knight's Tale, the protagonist, William Thatcher (played byHeath Ledger) pretends to be a knight known as "Ulrich von Lichtenstein from Gelderland".
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