Zeeheldenkwartier: the district most people should actually be looking at

Sixty-six per cent of the Zeeheldenkwartier is rented, 42% of it from private landlords, and the average household contains 1.6 people.

This is the district where people in their late twenties and thirties actually live in The Hague, and the numbers say so before any description does.

What it actually is

The district was laid out between 1870 and 1890, immediately west of the old centre, on what had been peat diggings.

The northern half is the Zeeheldenbuurt, with streets named after admirals and noticeably grander houses; the later southern half is the Dichtersbuurt, named after poets, with smaller ones.

Sixty-five per cent of the stock predates 1945 and 87% of it is flats, which is the highest share of any district in this guide apart from the Binckhorst.

It went badly wrong in the middle of the twentieth century.

After the war the district became a through-route for motor traffic and declined accordingly, and it was the renovation programmes of the mid-1980s that turned it round.

It became a municipally protected townscape on 11 February 2002.

The Elandkerk of around 1892 and the Artiestenhof, a workers’ courtyard of 1878, survive from the original build, and De Tempel, a former bank, now houses the city’s archaeology service.

The most recent change is at the Piet Heinplein, where the canal that had been culverted in 1901 was reopened and a smaller redesigned square opened in early 2024.

It is the clearest signal of where the district’s money and attention are going.

Who lives there

12,793 people in 2026, across 7,295 households, at a population density of 15,944 per square kilometre.

That is nearly three times the density of Benoordenhout and it is the reason the streets feel busy at every hour.

The 2025 origin split was 42% Dutch, 21% from elsewhere in Europe and 36% from outside Europe, and 60% of residents were born in the Netherlands.

Average income was 41,500 euro per resident in 2024 and 49,500 per earner, above the city’s 35,200 and 43,900 but a long way below the coastal districts.

What the numbers describe is a mixed district that is neither poor nor rich, which in The Hague is rarer than it sounds.

The money

The average WOZ value in 2025 was 437,000 euro, against 383,000 for the city and 658,000 in the Archipelbuurt ten minutes’ walk away.

For a district inside the ring, with a protected townscape and its own market, that is the best value-for-location trade in The Hague and it is why it keeps getting more expensive.

Only 34% of homes are owner-occupied.

Twenty-four per cent is social housing and 42% is private rental, and that last figure is the practical one: there is a lot of stock, it turns over constantly, and it is let unfurnished far more often than in the diplomatic districts.

It is also where a good share of the city’s dubious lettings sit, so read rental scams in The Hague and tenant rights, deposits and contracts before you transfer a deposit for a flat you have seen only in photographs.

Flats here are old, tall and often narrow, cut out of nineteenth-century houses.

Expect steep stairs, no lift, single-glazed rear windows on the cheaper lettings and a bicycle problem: there is nowhere to put one, and the street racks fill by six.

Estate agents in The Hague list this district heavily, which is a fair sign of how much of it is rented.

Getting about

Trams 3 and 17 stop on the Elandstraat, tram 17 also on the Zoutmanstraat, and bus 24 runs through.

Den Haag Centraal and Hollands Spoor are both a few minutes away, and the centre is a walk.

The Hague trams and buses covers the fares.

You do not need a car here and you will regret owning one.

The streets are narrow, the permit zones are full, and the sums are in parking permits in The Hague.

A bike is the correct answer to everything inside the ring, and buying a bike in The Hague explains where to get one that is not stolen.

Scheveningen is about fifteen minutes by tram, which is close enough to go on a whim and far enough that you do not live with the summer crowds.

That balance is worth more than it looks, and the alternative is set out in Scheveningen and Duindorp.

Saturday, and the rest of the week

Four shopping streets run through the district: the Prins Hendrikstraat, the Zoutmanstraat, the Piet Heinstraat and the Elandstraat.

They are not chain streets.

They carry independent grocers, vintage and design shops, record shops, small restaurants and a density of cafes that no other residential district in The Hague matches.

The city’s own visitor site calls it “one of The Hague’s cosiest city districts”, which is tourist-board language for the one place where the shops are still owned by the people standing behind the counter.

Every Thursday the Zeeheldenmarkt fills the Prins Hendrikplein with fresh, artisanal and sustainable produce.

The Zeeheldenfestival takes over the streets around the end of June each year and has done since 1981, when it began as a neighbourhood gathering.

Saturday night here is genuinely lively without being the Grote Markt.

Bars on the Prins Hendrikstraat and Piet Heinstraat stay busy, the crowd is local and mixed, and the noise is conversation rather than stag parties.

It is the best district in the city for eating and drinking alone without feeling conspicuous, which is the point made at length in going out alone in The Hague.

The honest drawbacks

There were 801 registered crimes in 2025, 62 per thousand residents against the city’s 69.

That is not a dangerous district, but it is a busy inner-city one: bike theft, scooter noise and the occasional weekend nuisance are the texture of living here.

Nobody in the Zeeheldenkwartier leaves an unlocked bike outside.

Space is the real cost.

At this density, flats are small, gardens are rare, and a family of four will be in three rooms unless they pay properly.

Households average 1.6 people for a reason, and families who like the district often end up moving one ring outwards to the Regentessekwartier and Valkenboskwartier, where the same architecture comes with more square metres for less money.

It is also getting more expensive quickly, and the mix that makes it good is the thing gentrification tends to remove.

The district that was cheap fifteen years ago is not cheap now, and the WOZ trend says it will not be cheaper next year.

For a single person, a couple, or anyone who wants to walk out of their front door into a street with something happening in it, this is the default recommendation in The Hague.

Which district suits which life puts it against the other ten, and the cost of living in The Hague gives the monthly arithmetic.

Sources

• AlleCijfers, wijk Zeeheldenkwartier (gemeente Den Haag): 12,793 inhabitants in 2026; 7,295 households and average household size 1.6; origin 42% Netherlands, 21% Europe, 36% outside Europe in 2025 with 60% born in the Netherlands; average WOZ value 437,000 euro in 2025; 34% owner-occupied, 24% corporation rental, 42% private rental; 87% flats and 65% built before 1945; average income 41,500 euro per resident and 49,500 euro per earner in 2024; population density 15,944 per km2; 801 registered crimes in 2025, 62 per 1,000 inhabitants
• AlleCijfers, gemeente Den Haag: average WOZ 383,000 euro in 2025, average income 35,200 euro per resident and 43,900 euro per earner in 2024, 69 registered crimes per 1,000 inhabitants in 2025
• Dutch Wikipedia, Zeeheldenkwartier: laid out between 1870 and 1890; streets named after sea heroes in the northern Zeeheldenbuurt and after poets in the later Dichtersbuurt; the main shopping streets given as the Piet Heinstraat, Zoutmanstraat and Prins Hendrikstraat; post-war decline as a through-route for motor traffic reversed by renovation from the mid-1980s; designated a municipally protected townscape on 11 February 2002; De Tempel, the Elandkerk of around 1892 and the Artiestenhof of 1878; the Zeeheldenfestival held around the end of June, originating as a neighbourhood gathering in 1981
• Dutch Wikipedia, Piet Heinstraat: primarily a shopping and hospitality street; the Piet Heinplein formed in 1901 when bridges were demolished and the canal covered over, with the decision after 2016 to reopen the canal and the redesigned, smaller square opening in early 2024
• DenHaag.com, Het Zeeheldenkwartier: “The main shopping streets are Prins Hendrikstraat, Zoutmanstraat and Piet Heinstraat”; “Every Thursday you will find the Zeeheldenmarkt on the Prins Hendrikplein, full of daily fresh, artisanal and sustainable products”; the district described as “one of The Hague’s cosiest city districts”
• Kidsproof Den Haag and DenHaag.com district pages: trams 3 and 17 stop at the Elandstraat, tram 17 also at the Zoutmanstraat, and bus 24 serves the district