🇳🇱 Netherlands · Randstad (west)
The Hague is the most elegant and stately city in the Netherlands: the seat of the government, of parliament and of the crown, but also the 'world capital of peace and justice', with its international courts and its swarm of embassies. Without Amsterdam's tourist crush, it offers a very Dutch mix of wide avenues, palaces, first-rank museums and, minutes from the centre, a long sandy beach on the North Sea. It is a city with a diplomatic air and a quiet pace, perfect for anyone after art, history and the coast in a single visit.
Its great cultural pride is the Mauritshuis, a jewel of a museum set in a seventeenth-century mansion that guards some of the masterpieces of Dutch painting, led by Johannes Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'. But The Hague is much more: the Binnenhof, the medieval complex of buildings where Dutch politics has beaten for centuries; the Panorama Mesdag, a giant nineteenth-century circular painting; the imposing Vredespaleis (Peace Palace), seat of the International Court of Justice; and the delightful Madurodam, where the whole of the Netherlands fits in miniature.
This guide covers the essentials of The Hague with a practical, warm eye: which museums not to miss, how to combine the city with Scheveningen beach, how to get around by tram, where to stay and eat, and how to make the most of its privileged position for trips to Delft, Leiden or Rotterdam. A city that surprises visitors with its balance of power, culture and life beside the sea.
The Hague began in the thirteenth century as a hunting lodge of the counts of Holland. Around 1230, Count Floris IV acquired land beside a wood and a pond, and his successor, William II — who became King of the Romans — had a residence built there. His son, Floris V, raised the Ridderzaal (the Hall of Knights) around 1280, the heart of today's Binnenhof. From that 'count's hedge' ('s-Gravenhage, 'the count's hedge') comes the city's official name. Unlike other Dutch cities, The Hague never received walled city rights in the Middle Ages, so for centuries it was technically considered a 'village', albeit a very important one. With the independence of the United Provinces in the sixteenth century, The Hague consolidated as the seat of the States General and of the stadtholders of the House of Orange, becoming the country's political centre. In the seventeenth century, during the Dutch Golden Age, it flourished as a city of the court and of diplomacy. After the Napoleonic interlude, with the creation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815, The Hague remained the seat of government and the royal residence, while Amsterdam kept the title of capital. In the early twentieth century, the Hague Peace Conferences (1899 and 1907) and Andrew Carnegie's donation to build the Peace Palace cemented its international calling. Since then, the city has hosted the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court and dozens of bodies, earning the title of world capital of peace and justice. The full history is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The urban heart of the Netherlands: Delft, where William of Orange was assassinated and Vermeer painted; The Hague, seat of government and world capital of international law; Rotterdam, flattened in 1940 and rebuilt as a city of the future; and the windmills and polders of Kinderdijk and the tulip fields of Keukenhof.
Read the history of Randstad (west) →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The Hague has an aristocratic origin that sets it apart from other Dutch cities, which grew up around harbours or trading crossroads. Its history begins in the thirteenth century as a residence of the counts of Holland. Around 1230, Count Floris IV acquired land beside a wood and an area of ponds, in a place well suited to hunting, and a comital residence began to develop there. The spot, with its wood and its lake, was ideal for the nobility to rest and hunt.
The great push came with William II of Holland, who became King of the Romans (elected king of the Holy Roman Empire), and with his son Floris V. Around 1280, Floris V had the Ridderzaal built, the imposing Hall of Knights, which would become the nucleus of today's Binnenhof. Around that comital residence grew a settlement serving the court: craftsmen, servants, officials and traders supplying the count and his retinue.
From that origin comes the city's official name: 's-Gravenhage, meaning 'the count's hedge' or 'the count's wood' (haag/hage as an enclosure or hedge, and graaf as count). The everyday name, Den Haag, is a shortened form. That noble root would mark The Hague's destiny for good as a city tied to power and the court, rather than to trade or industry.
The Hague grew in a peculiar way. Unlike cities such as Amsterdam, Haarlem or Delft, which obtained city rights and surrounded themselves with walls in the Middle Ages, The Hague never formally received those urban rights in that period. Technically it remained a 'village', although in practice it was one of the most important places in the county of Holland, being the seat of the comital court and, later, of the administration.
That absence of walls had consequences. On one hand, it gave The Hague its open, spacious layout, with wide boulevards and green areas, very different from the tight fabric of walled cities. On the other, it left it more militarily exposed, something that would make itself felt in various conflicts. Even so, its political role grew unstoppably over the centuries.
In time, The Hague consolidated as the seat of the governing bodies of the county of Holland and, during the Eighty Years' War and the birth of the Republic of the United Provinces, as the seat of key institutions. The States of Holland met there and, above all, the States General, the governing body of the young republic. The city thus went from a count's hunting lodge to the administrative and diplomatic heart of a new state.
Through the seventeenth century, the Dutch Golden Age, The Hague lived one of its most splendid periods. While Amsterdam concentrated world trade and mercantile wealth, The Hague was the city of political power, diplomacy and the court. The stadtholders of the House of Orange-Nassau, military and political leaders of the Republic, lived there, and the embassies and international negotiations were concentrated there.
That courtly, diplomatic character gave the city an elegant and stately appearance. Mansions, town houses and high-quality public buildings were built, such as the Mauritshuis, raised in the middle of the century as the residence of Count Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen and today one of the most celebrated museums in the world. The presence of the court drew first-rate artists, architects and craftsmen, and the city filled with art and refined architecture.
The Hague was also the setting for dramatic moments in Dutch history. Here the tensions between supporters of the House of Orange and the republican regents played out, culminating in 1672 — the so-called 'Disaster Year' (Rampjaar) — in the lynching of the brothers Johan and Cornelis de Witt, leaders of the republican faction, in a bloody episode that took place in the city itself. Politics and the court set the pulse of The Hague.
After the turbulent period of the Napoleonic wars, during which the Netherlands was absorbed into the French empire, Napoleon's fall opened a new stage. In 1815, the Congress of Vienna shaped the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, under the House of Orange-Nassau, with William I as king. In that new order a solution took hold that persists to this day: Amsterdam remained the constitutional capital of the kingdom, while The Hague became the seat of the government, of parliament and the residence of the royal family.
This peculiar division explains why, even today, the king works and lives in The Hague (in palaces such as Noordeinde and Huis ten Bosch), parliament meets in the Binnenhof and the ministries have their seats there, even though the official capital is Amsterdam. The Hague thus recovered and reinforced its historic role as the centre of Dutch political power, now as a fully recognised city.
Through the nineteenth century, the city grew and modernised while keeping its stately character. Elegant districts developed, the Scheveningen resort consolidated as a fashionable destination — with the construction of the great Kurhaus hotel — and a cultural life of its own flourished, with the so-called Hague School, a current of landscape and marine painters including Hendrik Willem Mesdag, creator of the famous Panorama Mesdag.
The Hague's international destiny was sealed at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1899 and 1907, the city hosted the Hague Peace Conferences, two pioneering international meetings, driven partly by the initiative of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, at which the great powers debated disarmament, the laws of war and, above all, mechanisms for resolving conflicts between states without resorting to arms. Out of those conferences came founding agreements of modern international law and the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
In that atmosphere of pacifist optimism, the American steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie funded the construction of a fitting home for these institutions: the Vredespaleis or Peace Palace, opened in 1913. Different countries contributed works of art and materials, turning the building into a symbol of international cooperation. The palace became the heart of The Hague's calling as a seat of justice between nations.
Through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, that calling deepened. After the Second World War, the Peace Palace came to house the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. Later, The Hague became the seat of the International Criminal Court, of special tribunals for war crimes, of the OPCW, of Europol and of dozens of international bodies, fully earning the title of 'world capital of peace and justice'.
The twentieth century brought The Hague hard trials and profound transformations. During the Second World War, the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany between 1940 and 1945, and The Hague suffered particularly. Because of its coastal position, the occupiers built part of the 'Atlantic Wall' defences in the area, which meant demolishing whole districts and displacing the population. In 1945, an Allied bombing raid aimed at German military installations missed its target and devastated the Bezuidenhout district, causing numerous civilian casualties, in one of the most tragic pages of local history.
After the war, the city was rebuilt and kept growing. New districts were developed, the infrastructure was modernised and The Hague reinforced its double identity: on one hand, a city of government, royal residence and national administration; on the other, an international centre of organisations, courts and embassies. That second facet expanded considerably with the creation of new international justice bodies in the final decades of the twentieth century.
Today The Hague is a cosmopolitan and diverse city, with a notable international population tied to the institutions, the embassies and global companies. It combines its historic heritage — the Binnenhof, the Mauritshuis, the royal palaces — with a rich cultural life, first-rank museums, a long coast with the Scheveningen resort and its singular status as world capital of peace and justice, a legacy that makes it unique among Dutch cities.