The Hague, Netherlands

Evergreen city guide with quick facts, travel, business, and culture.

NetherlandsSouth Holland

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.

Museums and Golden Age Art

The Mauritshuis (Girl with a Pearl Earring), the world's largest Mondrian collection at Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Escher in Het Paleis and the 1881 Panorama Mesdag.

Politics and Royal Heritage

The Binnenhof and Ridderzaal, Noordeinde Palace, Lange Voorhout and the Prinsjesdag royal procession each September.

City of Peace and Justice

The Peace Palace and International Court of Justice, the international tribunals and the densest concentration of international law in the world.

Scheveningen Beach

Eleven kilometres of North Sea beach, the Pier and Kurhaus, year-round surf culture and a working fishing harbour serving Hollandse Nieuwe herring.

Indonesian and Market Food Culture

The country's best rijsttafel and toko counters, the five-hundred-stall Haagse Markt and Chinatown around the Wagenstraat.

Day Trips

Delft fifteen minutes away, the Madurodam miniature park, the Louwman car museum and the Meijendel dunes towards Wassenaar.
Travel Overview

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.

Discover The Hague

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

Yes — and it deserves more than the usual half-day trip. Plan one full day for the centre (Binnenhof, Mauritshuis, Escher in Het Paleis, the Noordeinde and Passage shopping streets) and a second for the Peace Palace, Kunstmuseum and Scheveningen beach. A third day comfortably adds Delft, fifteen minutes away by tram or train.

Amsterdam is the constitutional capital, but The Hague is where the country is actually run: parliament and the government sit at the Binnenhof, the king works at Noordeinde Palace, the Supreme Court and all ministries are here, and so are the foreign embassies. The split is centuries old and the Dutch see no contradiction in it.

The Binnenhof courtyards are freely accessible, though parts of the complex are closed during the long-running renovation — the Hofvijver panorama remains intact. At the Peace Palace, the visitor centre by the gate is free; guided tours of the palace itself run on selected days when the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration are not in session, and sell out ahead.

Diplomatic missions in The Hague

9 embassies based in this city, grouped by region.