The count-down to the end of the year is always marked by a flurry of statistics about life in the Netherlands. 2015 is no exception. Here is a round-up of some of the week’s key figures.

Museum visits

The number of visitors to the big Dutch museums rose 7.2% this year, according to research by regional broadcasters and national news channel Nos. However, this is down slightly on the 9% average rise booked in previous years.

The Gemeente Museum in The Hague booked the biggest increase at 50%, due to its exhibition of work by Mark Rothko.

Expensive shopping

Amsterdam’s Kalverstraat remains the most expensive retail street in the Netherlands in terms of shop rents, according to research by Cushman & Wakefield.

Retailers have to pay some €3,000 a square metre for a shop on the city’s main high street, almost double the number two on the list, the Lijnbaan in Rotterdam (€1,650).

They are closely followed by the Lange Elisabethstraat in Utrecht and Grote Straat in Maastricht, which both cost €1,600 per square metre.

More bell peppers

Dutch greenhouse growers had a good year, despite the Russian boycott, according to the Lei agricultural research institute and quoted by Trouw.

It says tomato, cucumber and bell pepper growers doubled their earnings compared with a year ago. In particular, they have benefited from adverse weather conditions in Spain, Italy, Israel and Morocco and lower gas prices, Lei said.

Bigger farms

Dutch livestock farms became even bigger in 2015, according to new figures from national statistics office CBS. In April, the country was home to 12.6 million pigs, up 370,000 on a year earlier.

At the same time, the number of pig farms fell 3.8% to 4,000, the CBS said. In particular there has been a sharp rise in the number of farms with more than 7,500 pigs.

Dairy farms are also getting bigger and now have an average of 90 cows, compared with 35 in 1980. The number of goats on Dutch firms has risen by 11% over the year, while the number of goat farms is up 10%.