Radio astronomy started in Holland with a the hardware from a Würzburg Riese radar station from the Atlantic wall in WWII.First steerable radiotelescope It detected the 21 cm line of HI. The succes lead to the bulding of the 25 m dish in Dwingloo, in operation from 1956 -2009. Now it is a monument, run by amateurs.

Subsequently in Hooghalen since 1970 an aperture synthesis telescope is operating with 14 elements along a line of 2,7 km. The available frequencies range from 350 MHz - 8,3 GHz (92-3,6 cm). The instrument is also a node in a VLBI network. The telescope terrain crosses the area of the former camp Westerbork, where during WWII jews were jailed, on their way to their annihilation. When the telescopes were build the existing barracks were in use for expatriats from the Molukkan islands, after Indonsian independence.

The LOFAR array is centered in Drenthe with antenna's spread over Holland, Denmark, Sweden, UK and France. It started in 2010 and operates from 10 - 240 MHz.

For a review of the history of radio astronomy in the Netherlands see: radio astronomy in the Netherlands