The Grote rivieren, literally translated Great (or Large) rivers, is a landform

Landform

A landform or physical feature in the earth sciences and geology sub-fields, comprises a geomorphological unit, and is largely defined by its surface form and location in the landscape, as part of the terrain, and as such, is typically an element of topography...

 in the Netherlands. In addition, it is commonly used as a figure speech to denote a divide in Dutch culture linking to the broader Dutch-Flemish culture.

Geographical meaning

Geographically the term refers to the bisection of the Netherlands by the rivers Nederrijn

Nederrijn

thumb|left|300px|Course of the NederrijnNederrijn is the name of the Dutch part of the River Rhine from the confluence at the town of Angeren of the cut-off Rhine bend of Oude Rijn and the Pannerdens Kanaal...

, Lek, Waal, Merwede

Merwede

The Merwede is the name of several interconnected stretches of river in The Netherlands, all part of the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta. The Meuse river joins the Waal at Woudrichem to form the Boven Merwede...

 and Meuse

Meuse

Meuse is a department in northeast France, named after the River Meuse.-History:Meuse is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...

. This bisection is 25 km. wide and 150 km. long, and was used by the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 as a border.

Socio-cultural meaning

By use of the colloquialism

Colloquialism

A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday, unconstrained conversation rather than in formal speech, academic writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier...

 above/below the great rivers the boundary created by the rivers is highlighted in a cultural sense. The major divergence here is the difference between the predominantly Protestant

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

 north and predominantly Catholic

Catholicism

Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....

 south. In addition, dialectical differences (such as the use of the so-called Hard G in the north and the soft G in the south

Hard and soft G in Dutch

In the Dutch language the terminology hard and soft ⟨g⟩ refers to not only a phonological phenomenon of the pronunciation of the letters ⟨g⟩ and ⟨ch⟩ but also indicates a major isogloss within the language. In the northern part of the European Dutch language area, these letters represent velar or...

) as well as historical economic development

Economic development

Economic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area...

 are included in the expression. Although differences are often exaggerated, they display that whilst often a divide is made between Dutch (i.e. the entire Netherlands) and Belgian/Flemish culture, the major cultural divide within Dutch-speaking areas is located within the Netherlands itself, between northern Dutch culture (i.e. the entire Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 except Noord-Brabant and Limburg) and southern Dutch culture (i.e. Flanders

Flemish Region

The Flemish Region is one of the three official regions of the Kingdom of Belgium—alongside the Walloon Region and the Brussels-Capital Region. Colloquially, it is usually simply referred to as Flanders, of which it is the institutional iteration within the context of the Belgian political system...

 and the Dutch provinces Noord-Brabant and Limburg

Limburg (Netherlands)

Limburg is the southernmost of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands. It is located in the southeastern part of the country and bordered by the province of Gelderland to the north, Germany to the east, Belgium to the south and part of the west, andthe Dutch province of North Brabant partly to...

). These cultural divergence

Divergence

In vector calculus, divergence is a vector operator that measures the magnitude of a vector field's source or sink at a given point, in terms of a signed scalar. More technically, the divergence represents the volume density of the outward flux of a vector field from an infinitesimal volume around...

s play a part in the daily life within the Dutch-speaking region and are factors in personal identification among its inhabitants.