Drenthe

Drenthe is a province in the north-east of the Netherlands, bordering the German state of Lower Saxony, with Assen as its capital and Emmen as its most populous city; it is made up of twelve municipalities and had just over 500,000 inhabitants in 2023, with the lowest population density in the European Netherlands. It is a landscape of heathland, forest and farmland, home to the Drents-Friese Wold and Dwingelderveld national parks, and it holds 53 of the country's 54 dolmens (hunebedden), traces of very early human settlement. In sport, the TT Circuit Assen hosts the Dutch TT, a round of the MotoGP World Championship, and the Ronde van Drenthe, a cycling classic held from 1960 to 2024, was for decades one of its great fixtures, in a province known as the 'cycling province' of the Netherlands; FC Emmen is its only professional football club. Drenthe was recognised by ACES Europe as European Community of Sport 2019, a category reserved for territories that bring several municipalities together around sport, within the Dutch representation in the ACES network.