The Meertens Institute (Dutch Meertens Instituut) in Amsterdam is a research institute which studies and documents language and culture in the Netherlands as well as Dutch language and culture throughout the world.

The institute is part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen or KNAW).

Since 2001, the institute also houses the Secretariat of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF).

The ethnology department is well known for its research in and databases on Dutch songs and folktales, pilgrimage culture and saint cults, probate inventories, farmhouses, feast and rituals and religious cultures.

[3] The audio collection in the field of phonetics with recordings in the field of speech acquisition and dialects, formed at the University of Amsterdam by Dr. Louise Kaiser and Meertens, is housed at the Meertens Institute.