New Netherland (Dutch: Nieuw Nederland; Latin: Nova Belgica or Novum Belgium) is a seventeenth-century colony of the Dutch Republic that is located on what is now the East Coast of the United States.

The claimed territories extend from the Delmarva Peninsula to southwestern Cape Cod, while the more limited settled areas are now part of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut, with small outposts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

The colony had been conceived by the Dutch West India Company (WIC) to capitalize on the North American fur trade.

The invasion had been slowed at first because of policy mismanagement by the WIC, and conflicts with Native Americans.

The settlement of New Sweden by the Swedish South Company encroaches on its southern flank, while its eastern border is redrawn to accommodate an expanding New England Confederation.

The colony experiences dramatic growth during the 1650s, and becomes a major port for trade in the north Atlantic Ocean.

The Dutch surrender Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan island to England in 1664 (formalized in 1667), during to Second Anglo-Dutch War.

The inhabitants of New Netherland are European colonists, Native Americans, and Africans imported as enslaved laborers.

Not including Native Americans, the colonial population, many of whom are not of Dutch descent, is 1,500 to 2,000 in 1650, and 8,000 to 9,000 at the time of transfer to England in 1674.