Overview
The Hague is the seat of the Dutch government, the working city of the royal family and the world's legal capital — a stately, leafy city of palaces, top-tier museums and embassy avenues that runs straight into the North Sea at Scheveningen, the country's most famous beach resort.
Travel
The Hague (Den Haag) carries a double identity unlike anywhere else in the Netherlands: it is the country's political heart — parliament, ministries, the royal working palace — and at the same time a genuine seaside city, with eleven kilometres of North Sea beach inside the municipal boundary. The centre is grand rather than quaint: broad avenues, the Lange Voorhout's double rows of lime trees, gentlemen's clubs and embassies where Amsterdam would have canals and houseboats. The Binnenhof complex on the Hofvijver pond has been the seat of Dutch political life for centuries, and the Mauritshuis next door holds Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring in a collection small enough to absorb in a morning. The international zone to the north — the Peace Palace, the International Court of Justice, the international tribunals — has earned The Hague its title as the world's city of peace and justice. Then the city changes register: tram 9 or 1 ends at Scheveningen, where the 19th-century Kurhaus presides over a pier, a promenade, surf schools and a fishing harbour that still lands North Sea herring. Add the M.C. Escher museum in a former royal palace, the world's largest Mondrian collection at Kunstmuseum Den Haag, one of Europe's biggest open-air markets, and the best Indonesian cooking in the country, and The Hague rewards more time than the day-trip it usually gets.
The Binnenhof — a walled complex of courtyards and Gothic halls on the Hofvijver pond — has hosted the counts of Holland and then the Dutch parliament since the Middle Ages, making it one of the oldest parliament sites in the world still in use. The 13th-century Ridderzaal (Hall of Knights) at its centre is where the monarch delivers the speech from the throne each September, arriving by horse-drawn coach on Prinsjesdag (the third Tuesday of September — the city's grandest annual spectacle). Parts of the complex close during the long-running renovation, but the Hofvijver panorama — towers, gables and the prime minister's little office tower (het Torentje) mirrored in the pond — remains The Hague's defining picture. The surrounding political quarter, with the Plein's statue of William of Orange and its café terraces full of civil servants and journalists, is the place to feel how compact Dutch power is.
Frequently asked questions
Transport & airports
Tourism & destination guides
Culture & festivals
Timed-entry tickets for Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson and the royal cabinet of Golden Age painting.
Visitor centre and guided-tour booking for the seat of the International Court of Justice — tours run on selected days when the courts are not in session.
Berlage's monumental museum holding the world's largest Mondrian collection, including Victory Boogie Woogie, plus Delftware and fashion.
The 1:25 miniature Netherlands between the centre and Scheveningen — a city-park scale model of the whole country, open year round.
Diplomatic missions in The Hague
11 embassies based in this city, grouped by region.
This overview comes from Visaja's worldwide missions database (visaja.com), checked against official government sources; for binding answers, the mission itself always has the final word.