The States General, the representative legislature of the Netherlands, comprises two houses and dates to medieval times.

The Dukes of Burgundy were the first rulers of most of what is now the Low Countries and were then the Burgundian Netherlands. The dukes began by establishing personal rule and then, after some instances of fierce resistance, gave way to the representative Estates General, which first met in 1464, under Philip the Good; attending were representatives from the County of Artois, the County of Boulogne, the Duchy of Brabant, the County of Flanders, the County of Hainaut, the County of Holland, the Lordship of Mechelen, the County of Namur, and the County of Zeeland. Each of these entities had similar assemblies of their own; this was the first instance of an assembly involving members of multiple entities. They met in Bruges, from January 9 to February 12, then disbanded.

When Philip the Good's son, Charles the Bold, died, in 1477, the States General (lacking the "e" in States) met to decide what to do about a successor, since Duke Charles's only child was a woman, Mary of Burgundy. The States General agreed to support her as ruler but also issued a list of demands and concessions known as the Great Privilege. Specifically, the nobles who made up the States General wanted more autonomy returned to them, after several years of the Dukes of Burgundy taking actions to more centralize their authority. Mary reluctantly agreed to the terms, and she found herself ruling the duchy, with approval. Mary then married Archduke Maximilian of Austria, who became co-ruler.

The States General met intermittently but maintained its advisory function when it did. A century after the Great Privilege was the Dutch Revolt, against the new ruler, Spain's King Philip II. By this time, the Burgundian Netherlands had become the Austrian Netherlands and had then been incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire. The revolt against Spanish rule split the northern and southern provinces, the former eventually forming the Dutch Republic and the latter staying within the Spanish fold. In the north, the States General declared themselves in full control of their destiny, rejecting the sovereignty of Philip II. This dispute formed the basis of the Eighty Years War.

Also, in 1593, the States General began a permanent session status, meeting in The Hague and not being dissolved again for nearly two centuries. By this time, the voting on matters of state was by province, with each of the northern provinces having just one vote. A power-sharing arrangement at the top stipulated that the president of the States General was one of the senior representatives from a single province who served a one-week term, giving way to a senior representative of another province, and so on. At this time, the States General was also nominally in charge of both the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company.

All of that was the situation in the northern provinces. In the south, representatives attended their own States General, separate from the north, meeting in Brussels but only occasionally, until King Philip IV of Spain dissolved the body, in 1634. Any further meetings of the southern States General proved impossible after French annexation, in 1795. In that same year, the Batavian Republic ended the northern States General.

The successor to the States General briefly was something of the same name, having only one house in its legislature and having no executive function. That lasted for about two decades, then gave way to a return of the bicameral model under William I of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, proclaimed in 1815. Under that model, the upper house, the Senate, had 50 members, appointed for life by the king, and the lower house, the House of Representatives, had 110 members (half each from north and south), elected by the States-Provincial.

As a result of the Revolutions of 1848, the Dutch government crafted a new, more representative consitution. Election of the Senate moved to the States-Provincial, and the people at large elected the members of the House of the Representatives. The lower house gained more power and oversight from the new constitution, which made the role of king largely ceremonial.

The 1849 constitution had reduced the number of Senators to 39. That number went back to 50 under a new constitution, promulgated in 1888, which set the number of Representatives at 100. Those numbers changed again in 1956, to 75 and 150, respectively. The States General by this time was meeting regularly, the exception being a suspension during Nazi occupation from 1940 to 1945.

The number of members of the Senate and of House of Representatives remain 75 and 150, respectively. The States-Provincial elects members of the Senate, the leader of the which is the President; the people at large, using proportional representation, elect members of the House, the leader of which is the Speaker. As of 1918, members of both houses serve four-year terms.