The Netherlands Antilles (Dutch: Nederlandse Antillen); Papiamento: Antia Hulandes) was a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The country consisted of several island territories located in the Caribbean Sea. The islands were also informally known as the Dutch Antilles. The country came into being in 1954 as the autonomous successor of the Dutch colony of Curaçao and Dependencies and was dissolved in 2010. The Dutch colony of Surinam, although it was relatively close by on the continent of South America, did not become part of the Netherlands Antilles but became a separate autonomous country in 1954. All the island territories that belonged to the Netherlands Antilles remain part of the kingdom today, although the legal status of each differs. As a group they are still commonly called the Dutch Caribbean, regardless of their legal status. People from this former territory continue to be called Antilleans (Antillianen) in the Netherlands. The flag of the Netherlands Antilles was white, with a horizontal blue stripe in the center, one-third of the flag’s hoist, superimposed on a vertical red stripe of the same width, also centered; six white, five-pointed stars are arranged in a pentagon pattern in the center of the blue band, their points up. It was adopted on 19 November 1959. The six stars represented the six main islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten. In 1986, Aruba seceded from the Netherlands Antilles resulting in the flag being modified to depict only five stars to represent the remaining five islands. On 10 October 2010, the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved into Curaçao, Sint Maarten and the three public bodies of the Caribbean Netherlands. Full HD.