Why Are People From Holland Called Dutch?

Holland was actually a province in the country that is known as Netherlands. But later on Holland became more popular and now it is used to refer to the entire country just like Russia indicates the entire Soviet Union. The natives of Holland are known as Dutch.

Dutch is a word that is even older than Netherlands. Actually this word is a derivation from Diets which simply meant "the people". Later on when this word was incorporated into English it was changed to Dutch. The Netherlanders or Hollanders now don't use this term to refer to themselves and might take offence if addressed by this name. But other European nations still call people from Holland as Dutch while the natives prefer to call themselves as Hollanders or Netherlanders. Americans use the word Dutch to describe the Germans too.