The Netherlands is Europe’s virtual red light district, hosting more porn websites than any other European country, according to new research.

The Netherlands hosts 187 million web pages of porn – or 26% of the total European porn network – putting it in second place in the world porn league table. This despite a population of less than 17 million.

The Netherlands is also home to more porn site domain names – a total of 1.8 million. Britain, in third place in the ranking, hosts just 500,000 porn sites.

Liberal

The survey was compiled by Paul Walsh of family-friendly web product specialist Metacert.

Web safety expert John Carr told the website the Dutch dominance may be to do with the country’s liberal attitudes to the sex industry. Many experts say this has created a safe haven for sex industry bosses.

‘I wasn’t surprised to learn the famously liberal Netherlands was up there, although their disproportionate dedication to the cause does deserve a special prize of some sort,’ he said.

Nevertheless, the Netherlands still trails the US, which hosts 428 million porn pages, or 60% of the total.