The Seventeen Provinces is a term applied to the Imperial states of the Habsburg Netherlands in the sixteenth century.
They roughly cover the Low Countries, i.e. what is now Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg; plus most of the modern French department of Nord-Pas-de-Calais including Artois, French Flanders, and French Hainaut.
Also within this area are semi-independent fiefdoms, mainly ecclesiastical ones, such as Liège, Cambrai and Stavelot-Malmedy.
The Seventeen Provinces arose from the Burgundian Netherlands, a number of fiefs held by the House of Valois-Burgundy and inherited by the Habsburg dynasty in 1482, from 1556 held by Habsburg Spain.
Since 1512 the Provinces had formed the major part of the Burgundian Circle.
In 1581 the Seven United Provinces secede to form the Dutch Republic.
