The King's Commissioner of Limburg ( Dutch: ''Commissaris van de Koning in Limburg'') is the chairman of both the

States of Limburg The Provincial Council of Limburg ( nl, Provinciale Staten van Limburg), also called Limburgs Parlement, are the provincial council for the Dutch province of Limburg. It forms the legislative body of the province. Its 47 seats are distributed eve ...

as well as the

provincial executive The provincial executive (, GS) is the executive branch of government of a province in the Netherlands. It is the equivalent of the municipal executive at the provincial level. The provincial executive consists of the King's Commissioner (chair) ...

.Commissarissen van de Koning(in) in Limburg sinds 1850
on Parlement.com (in Dutch) In the

Dutch province There are twelve provinces of the Netherlands (), representing the administrative layer between the national government and the local municipalities, with responsibility for matters of subnational or regional importance. The most populous provi ...

of Limburg, the King's Commissioner is usually called ''Gouverneur'' ( governor), as in Belgium. Similarly, the ''Provinciehuis'' (Province Hall) in Maastricht is called ''Gouvernement'' (Governor's Residence). This local custom arose from the particular status of the current province in the nineteenth century. In 1830, the whole of the province of Limburg, which at the time consisted of both the present Dutch and Belgian parts, joined in the

Belgian Revolution The Belgian Revolution (, ) was the conflict which led to the secession of the southern provinces (mainly the former Southern Netherlands) from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the establishment of an independent Kingdom of Belgium. T ...

, with the notable exception of the city of Maastricht. From then until 1839 Limburg was governed as part of Belgium. As per the 1839

Treaty of London The Treaty of London or London Convention or similar may refer to: *Treaty of London (1358), established a truce between England and France following the Battle of Poitiers *Treaty of London (1359), which ceded western France to England *Treaty of ...

, The Netherlands recognised Belgium's independence, but special provisions were made for Limburg (and Luxembourg). The province was divided into two, roughly taking river Meuse as the border, with most of the eastern half, although now an integral part of the Dutch territory, becoming a member of the

German Confederacy The German Confederation (german: Deutscher Bund, ) was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe. It was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire, w ...

as the " Duchy of Limburg" to appease Prussia, which had lost access to the Meuse after the Congress of Vienna. This peculiar arrangement, which excluded Maastricht and Venlo, lasted until the Confederation's dissolution in 1866. The folklore custom to call the local King's Commissioner "Governor" dates from these times; nowadays it is used to underline the Limburgers' (self-)perceived otherness from "regular" Dutchmen.

List of King's and Queen's commissioners of Limburg

References

{{King's Commissioners Limburg Politics of Limburg (Netherlands)