Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange (Catharina-Amalia Beatrix Carmen Victoria; born 7 December 2003) is the

heir apparent An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...

to the throne of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the constituent countries of Aruba,

Curaçao Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coas ...

, the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, and

Sint Maarten Sint Maarten () is a Countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean. With a population of 41,486 as of January 2019 on an area of , it encompasses the southern 44% of the divid ...

. Catharina-Amalia is the eldest child of King Willem-Alexander and Queen

Máxima of the Netherlands Máxima may refer to * ''Máxima'' (magazine) * Máxima FM, Spanish radio station * Queen Máxima of the Netherlands Máxima (born Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti; 17 May 1971) is Queen of the Netherlands as the wife of King Willem-Alexander. A ...

. She became heir apparent to the Dutch throne when her father ascended the throne on 30 April 2013.

Birth

Princess Catharina-Amalia Beatrix Carmen Victoria was born at 17:01 CET on 7 December 2003 in the HMC Bronovo in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a list of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's ad ...

, the first child of the then

Prince Willem-Alexander Willem-Alexander (; Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand; born ) is King of the Netherlands, having acceded to the throne following his mother's abdication in 2013. Willem-Alexander was born in Utrecht as the oldest child of Princess Beatri ...

(now king) and Princess Máxima. Upon the public announcement of her birth, 101 salute shots were fired at four places in the

Kingdom of the Netherlands , national_anthem = ) , image_map = Kingdom of the Netherlands (orthographic projection).svg , map_width = 250px , image_map2 = File:KonDerNed-10-10-10.png , map_caption2 = Map of the four constituent countries shown to scale , capital = ...

: Den Helder and

in the

Willemstad Willemstad ( , ; ; en, William Town, italic=yes) is the capital city of Curaçao, an island in the southern Caribbean Sea that forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was the capital of the Netherlands Antilles p ...

in Curacao, and Oranjestad in Aruba. On 12 June 2004, Catharina-Amalia was

baptised Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...

by the Rev. Carel ter Linden in the

Great Church The term "Great Church" ( la, ecclesia magna) is used in the historiography of early Christianity to mean the period of about 180 to 313, between that of primitive Christianity and that of the legalization of the Christian religion in the Roman ...

in The Hague. Her godparents are her uncle Prince Constantijn, Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, the (then) vice-president of the Council of State of the Netherlands Herman Tjeenk Willink, friend of her mother Samantha Deane, her uncle Martín Zorreguieta, and friend of her father Marc ter Haar. Catharina-Amalia's maternal grandparents, Jorge Zorreguieta and María del Carmen Cerruti Carricart, were prohibited from attending her parents' wedding in 2002 due to Zorreguieta's involvement in the regime of General Jorge Rafael Videla, but were present at her baptism, which was a private rather than a state affair.

Early life and education

Princess Catharina-Amalia has two younger sisters: Princess Alexia (born in 2005) and Princess Ariane (born in 2007). She lives with her parents and one of her sisters in Huis ten Bosch palace in

. In December 2007, Catharina-Amalia started attended Bloemcamp Primary School, a

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...

primary school in Wassenaar. After graduated from primary school, she attended the

Christelijk Gymnasium Sorghvliet Christelijk Gymnasium Sorghvliet, commonly known simply as Sorghvliet, is an independent Protestant gymnasium in The Hague. Sorghvliet is consistently ranked among the top 10 schools in the Netherlands by the influential magazine Elsevier. Sorghv ...

in The Hague, where her aunt Princess Laurentien attended. She participated in the student council and attended both the Model United Nations of the International School of The Hague and The Hague International Model United Nations conferences. She graduated in 2021 with distinction. Upon graduation, she announced that she would take a gap year and refused to accept her right to €1.6m a year in income for the time period, adding that it would make her "uncomfortable as long as I do not do anything for it in return". The Princess spent her gap year in an internship at the Orange Fund and volunteered at other organisations. Since 5 September 2022 Catharina-Amalia is studying at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other bein ...

for a BSc degree in Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics (PPLE). She was placed under heightened security and moved out of her student flat after a threat was identified. Her birthdays are traditionally celebrated with a concert at the Kloosterkerk in

, which is attended by ambassadors and members of the royal household and the Council of State of the Netherlands. She speaks Dutch, English, and Spanish. Additionally, she took classes in the

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...

language. On her seventh birthday, a

Douglas C-47 Skytrain The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota ( RAF, RAAF, RCAF, RNZAF, and SAAF designation) is a military transport aircraft developed from the civilian Douglas DC-3 airliner. It was used extensively by the Allies during World War II and remain ...

once owned by her great-grandfather,

Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld , house = Lippe , father = Prince Bernhard of Lippe , mother = Armgard von Cramm , birth_date = , birth_name = Count Bernhard of Biesterfeld , birth_place = Jena, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Germany , death_date = ...

, was named after Catharina-Amalia by Peter Hartman. The princess herself was prevented from attending the naming ceremony owing to school obligations. Catharina-Amalia's paternal grandmother,

Queen Beatrix Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, ; born 31 January 1938) is a member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013. Beatrix is the eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and her hus ...

, abdicated on 30April 2013 and her father ascended the throne. Catharina-Amalia, as the new

, assumed the title of Princess of Orange, becoming the first to do so in her own right. On 8 December 2021, Princess Catharina-Amalia assumed her seat in the Advisory Division of the

Council of State A Council of State is a governmental body in a country, or a subdivision of a country, with a function that varies by jurisdiction. It may be the formal name for the cabinet or it may refer to a non-executive advisory body associated with a head o ...

when she reached the

age of majority The age of majority is the threshold of legal adulthood as recognized or declared in law. It is the moment when minors cease to be considered such and assume legal control over their persons, actions, and decisions, thus terminating the contro ...

at 18 the day before. In 2020, a new regiment of the

Royal Netherlands Army The Royal Netherlands Army ( nl, Koninklijke Landmacht) is the land branch of the Netherlands Armed Forces. Though the Royal Netherlands Army was raised on 9 January 1814, its origins date back to 1572, when the was raised – making the Dut ...

, the Regiment Huzaren Prinses Catharina-Amalia, was named for Catharina-Amalia.

Public life

On 17 June 2022, together with her parents, she was among the royal guests invited to the celebrations of the 18th birthday of Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway. This was Catharina-Amalia's first public engagement outside of The Netherlands and the first occasion to which she was allowed to wear a tiara. On 20 September 2022, together with her parents, she attended Prinsjesdag, where the King addressed a joint session of the

States General of the Netherlands The States General of the Netherlands ( nl, Staten-Generaal ) is the supreme bicameral legislature of the Netherlands consisting of the Senate () and the House of Representatives (). Both chambers meet at the Binnenhof in The Hague. The States ...

to outline government policy for the upcoming parliamentary session. In January 2023, Catharina-Amalia will go on a tour of the

Dutch Caribbean The Dutch Caribbean (historically known as the Dutch West Indies) are the territories, colonies, and countries, former and current, of the Dutch Empire and the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean Sea. They are in the north and south-w ...

with her parents. They will visit Aruba,

Bonaire Bonaire (; , ; pap, Boneiru, , almost pronounced ) is a Dutch island in the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Its capital is the port of Kralendijk, on the west (leeward) coast of the island. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC ...

Sint Eustatius Sint Eustatius (, ), also known locally as Statia (), is an island in the Caribbean. It is a special municipality (officially " public body") of the Netherlands. The island lies in the northern Leeward Islands portion of the West Indies, s ...

, and Saba. It will be her first official royal tour.

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Royal Monogram of Princess Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands

Titles

* 7 December 2003 – 30 April 2013: ''Her Royal Highness'' Princess Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau * 30 April 2013 – present: ''Her Royal Highness'' The Princess of Orange, Princess of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau Like her sisters, Catharina-Amalia was born a Princess of the Netherlands and a Princess of Orange-Nassau. As heir apparent she is also the Princess of Orange. This title is substantive and used without her name.

Honours

NLD Order of the Dutch Lion - Grand Cross BAR

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion (7 December 2021). * Ordre du Lion d'Or de la Maison de Nassau ribbon

Knight of the Order of the Gold Lion of the House of Nassau (7 December 2021).

Arms

Ancestry

Through her paternal grandfather, a member of the House of Amsberg, Catharina-Amalia is descended from families of the lower

German nobility The German nobility (german: deutscher Adel) and royalty were status groups of the medieval society in Central Europe, which enjoyed certain privileges relative to other people under the laws and customs in the German-speaking area, until the be ...

, and through her paternal grandmother, from several German royal families such as the

House of Lippe The House of Lippe (german: Haus Lippe) is the former reigning house of a number of small German states, two of which existed until the German Revolution of 1918–19, the Principality of Lippe and the Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe. Prince ...

, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the

House of Orange-Nassau The House of Orange-Nassau ( Dutch: ''Huis van Oranje-Nassau'', ) is the current reigning house of the Netherlands. A branch of the European House of Nassau, the house has played a central role in the politics and government of the Netherland ...

, Waldeck and Pyrmont, and the

House of Hohenzollern The House of Hohenzollern (, also , german: Haus Hohenzollern, , ro, Casa de Hohenzollern) is a German royal (and from 1871 to 1918, imperial) dynasty whose members were variously princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenb ...

. She is descended from the first King of the Netherlands,

William I of the Netherlands William I (Willem Frederik, Prince of Orange-Nassau; 24 August 1772 – 12 December 1843) was a Prince of Orange, the King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg. He was the son of the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, who w ...

, who was also a ruler in Luxembourg and several German states, and all subsequent Dutch monarchs. On her mother's side, Catharina-Amalia is descended from wealthy Spanish Argentines and Italian Argentines, with some Basque ancestry.

References

External links

The Princess of Orange
at the website of the Royal House of the Netherlands , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands 2003 births Living people Dutch people of Argentine descent Dutch people of Portuguese descent Dutch people of Italian descent Dutch people of Basque descent Female heirs apparent House of Orange-Nassau Nobility from The Hague People from Wassenaar Princes of Orange Princesses of Orange-Nassau Princesses of Orange Dutch people of Spanish descent Daughters of kings Protestant Church Christians from the Netherlands Members of the Council of State (Netherlands) Recipients of the Order of the Netherlands Lion