GRÖNINGEN, the capital of the above province, and the most important town in the northern part of Holland, is situated on the Hunse, 92 miles N.E. of Amsterdam. It is neat, clean, and regularly built, and is surrounded by walls and ditches. It has twelve churches, the finest of which is St Martin's, a handsome Gothic edifice, surmounted by a lofty spire. The town-hall is an elegant modern structure, in the Bree-market, one of the grandest squares in the kingdom. The university, founded in 1614, has an excellent museum of natural history and a botanic garden, and is attended by about 400 students. Gröningen has an academy of painting, sculpture, and architecture; schools for the blind and the deaf and dumb; societies of natural history, chemistry, and literature; a public library, &c. It has an active trade in cheese, butter, cattle, corn, and other agricultural products; and ship-building is carried on. There are paper-mills, and some factories of woolen and silk stuffs, but, generally speaking, the manufactures are inconsiderable. Pop. (1850) 33,695.