The Dutch Empire is the name given to the various territories controlled by the Netherlands from the 17th to the 20th century. The Dutch followed Spain and Portugal in establishing a colonial global empire outside of continental Europe. Their skills in shipping and trading and the surge of nationalism and militarism accompanying the struggle for independence from Spain aided the venture. Alongside the British, the Dutch initially built up colonial possessions on the basis of indirect state capitalist corporate colonialism, with the Dutch East India Company dominant. Direct state intervention in the colonial enterprise came later. Dutch merchants and sailors also participated in the surge of exploration that unfolded in the 16th and 17th centuries, though the vast new territories revealed by Willem Barents, Henry Hudson,Willem Janszoon and Abel Tasman in the Arctic and in Australasia/Oceania did not generally become permanent Dutch colonies.

With Dutch naval power rising rapidly as a major force from the late 16th century, the Netherlands reigned supreme at sea, and dominated global commerce, during the second half of the 17th century, which translated in the fact that the Dutch were the foremost power in the world at that time. A cultural flowering during the century is known as the Dutch Golden Age. The Netherlands lost many of its colonial possessions, as well as the status of being the foremost power in the world, to the British when the metropole fell to the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. The French centralized government in a Dutch client state during this "French period" from 1795 to 1814. The restored portions of the Dutch empire, notably the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Suriname, and The Netherlands Antilles remained under The Hague's control until the decline of traditional imperialism in the 20th century.