The Netherlands' seat of government and the world's capital of justice — parliament, palaces, Vermeer and a North Sea beach.
The Hague began around 1230 as a count's hunting lodge beside a pond, the Hofvijver, and grew — without ever winning full city rights — into the seat of Dutch government it remains today. Parliament still meets at the medieval Binnenhof, and the king works here, even though Amsterdam is the capital. In 1913 the American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie paid for the Peace Palace, and the city became the home of international law. Beyond the ministries lie Vermeer's masterpieces, Escher's illusions and the wide North Sea sands of Scheveningen. Roughly 565,000 people (2024) live here.
It started with a pond. Around 1230 Count Floris IV of Holland bought a farmstead beside a small lake, the Hofvijver, and built a hunting lodge there. His son William II — who was briefly elected king of the Germans — turned it into a castle and raised the Ridderzaal, the Hall of Knights, whose high wooden roof still hosts state ceremonies. Because the settlement grew up around the count's court rather than as a chartered town with walls and rights, rival cities long sneered at it as "the largest village in Europe." Those same red-brick towers, the Binnenhof, still hold parliament and still float upside down in the Hofvijver's water.
The Hague's second life began with an idea about peace. In 1899 Tsar Nicholas II of Russia summoned the world's powers here to write the first rules limiting war. Andrew Carnegie, a poor Scottish boy who became the richest steelmaker in America and then gave his fortune away, funded a "temple of peace" to house the effort. The Peace Palace opened in 1913 — one year before the First World War shattered its hopes. Yet the idea held: today the palace is home to the International Court of Justice, the top court of the United Nations, and across town the International Criminal Court tries war crimes.
Then there is the art and the sea. In the Mauritshuis, a compact palace built by a colonial governor, hangs Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" — a girl caught mid-turn against the dark, sometimes called the Mona Lisa of the North. A short walk away, a former royal palace is filled with M. C. Escher's impossible staircases and interlocking birds. And a tram ride from the ministries the city meets the North Sea at Scheveningen, where a fishing village became a resort of pier, promenade and grand hotel.
The making of The Hague
The Binnenhof
The medieval brick castle-turned-parliament on the Hofvijver, grown from a count's 13th-century hunting lodge.
Prinsjesdag
Every third Tuesday of September the king rides in procession to deliver the speech from the throne and open the parliamentary year.
The Peace Palace
Funded by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie and opened in 1913, it houses the International Court of Justice — the UN's top court.
The Mauritshuis
A jewel-box 17th-century palace, now a museum, holding Vermeer, Rembrandt and the finest Dutch Golden Age painting.
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Vermeer's luminous girl glancing over her shoulder — the "Mona Lisa of the North", hanging in the Mauritshuis.
M. C. Escher
The Dutch graphic artist of impossible staircases and tessellating birds, celebrated in a former palace in the centre.
Scheveningen
The city's North Sea resort — a long sandy beach, a pier and a grand seafront where a fishing village once stood.
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