Regentessekwartier and Valkenboskwartier: the most house per euro inside the ring

Ninety-three per cent of the housing in the Valkenboskwartier was built before 1945, and 17,410 people live in each square kilometre of it.

Both figures are the highest of any district in this guide.

What that produces is street after street of unbroken brick terraces, four storeys, almost no gaps, and a population density that beats the city centre.

Two Victorian and Edwardian districts, side by side

The Regentessekwartier was laid out between 1885 and 1910 on the former polder ‘t Kleine Veentje.

Half its streets are named after officers of the Belgian Uprising of 1830 to 1839, which is why older residents still call that part the Veldherenkwartier, and the rest after inventors.

The Regentesselaan was an innovation in its day: in 1891 I.A. Lindo, the director of the municipal works department, drew the first diagonal avenue The Hague had ever had.

The Valkenboskwartier began in 1903, after a boundary change the previous year transferred the ground from Loosduinen to The Hague.

It is known locally as the Uitvinderswijk, the inventors’ quarter, because so many of its streets carry the names of inventors and scientists, and the Valkenboslaan cuts through it on another diagonal.

It was built for the middle classes and the better-paid worker, and its signature is the long uninterrupted facade wall and the shallow depth of the building blocks.

It is one of the nineteen protected townscapes of The Hague.

Both are what people picture when they imagine a Dutch city street and neither is in a guidebook.

That is roughly the deal here.

Who lives there

The Regentessekwartier had 14,376 residents in 2026 in 8,015 households, 4,470 of them single-person.

The Valkenboskwartier had 18,159 in 10,230 households.

Average household size in both is 1.8.

Origins in 2025 were 42% Dutch, 22% from elsewhere in Europe and 35% from outside Europe in the Regentessekwartier, and 45, 23 and 32 in the Valkenboskwartier.

Average income per resident was 37,900 and 35,000 euro respectively in 2024, against 35,200 for the city.

These are the two most ordinary districts in this guide, in the literal sense: they sit almost exactly on the city’s own averages for income and origin, and they are where a large part of working Hague actually lives.

The money

Average WOZ value in 2025 was 389,000 euro in the Regentessekwartier and 333,000 in the Valkenboskwartier, against 383,000 across the city and 437,000 in the Zeeheldenkwartier next door.

The Valkenboskwartier is the better-value half by a clear margin, and it is the one with the higher share of owner-occupation at 49% against 35%.

The Regentessekwartier is a renters’ district: 48% private rental and 17% social.

The Valkenboskwartier is 40% private and only 11% social.

In both, the private rental market is large, active and much cheaper per square metre than anything inside the ring, and the flats are bigger.

A three-room apartment here is genuinely three rooms rather than a partitioned one-bedroom.

That is the trade nobody tells arriving internationals about.

Ten minutes further from the Binnenhof buys you a considerable amount of floor.

Before you sign anything, read renting in The Hague and tenant rights, deposits and contracts, and check what the landlord means by “gestoffeerd”.

Estate agents in The Hague hold a fair share of this stock, but a lot of it changes hands privately.

Getting about

Tram 3, from Den Haag Centraal, and tram 12, from Den Haag Hollands Spoor, both stop at the Fahrenheitstraat on the districts’ western flank.

That puts the centre at roughly ten minutes and Hollands Spoor at about the same.

The Hague trams and buses has the fares and the OV-pay detail.

Cycling is the honest answer here, because the districts are flat, gridded and about fifteen minutes from almost everything.

Buying a bike in The Hague covers the second-hand market, and bike shops and repair in The Hague are thick on the ground in both districts.

Parking is permit-controlled with a twist worth knowing.

Both districts are charged from 18.00 to midnight, Monday to Sunday: evenings only, seven days a week, which is precisely the window in which you come home.

A visitor arriving for dinner pays; a visitor arriving at eleven in the morning does not.

The permit prices are in parking permits in The Hague.

The beach is twenty-five minutes or so by tram with a change, which makes this an inland district in every sense that matters.

Saturday, and the rest of the week

The Weimarstraat runs about one and a half kilometres from the Koningin Emmakade to the Valkenboskade, straight through the Regentessekwartier, and it has been developing since around 2000 into a street of specialist and independent shops.

The city’s own visitor site calls it “the shopping street in The Hague for those who love unique finds and local entrepreneurs”, which is fair: it is scruffy in places, genuinely interesting in others, and it is the closest thing either district has to a centre.

Just over the western boundary, in the Bomenbuurt, the Fahrenheitstraat and Thomsonlaan form De Fahrenheit, a full high street with HEMA, Blokker, Albert Heijn, Plus and a long tail of specialists.

It has been a Hague household name since 1920 and it is where most residents of both districts do their actual shopping.

Theater De Regentes on the Weimarstraat is the cultural anchor and it has a good story: the building opened in 1920 as the largest covered baths and swimming establishment in Europe, and has been a theatre since 1997.

It is a municipal monument and it programmes music, dance and film rather than repertory drama.

Saturday night is local.

There are bars, there is no strip, and the crowd is people who live within five streets.

The Grote Markt is fifteen minutes by tram if you want volume, and the argument for living in it is in Centrum and the Chinatown end.

The honest drawbacks

Density.

At 15,841 and 17,410 people per square kilometre these are crowded districts, with narrow streets, cars parked nose to tail, almost no front gardens and a great deal of shared-wall living.

Eighty-seven and 92% of homes are flats.

If you need quiet and a garden, this is the wrong half of The Hague and Ypenburg and Leidschenveen is the right one.

The Regentessekwartier was designated an urban renewal area in 2000 and a new district office and police station opened on the Weimarstraat in 2004.

That history is visible: parts of the street are polished and parts are not, and the mix of shuttered units and good independents changes block by block.

Walk the whole length before deciding what you think.

Crime sits just under the city average: 813 offences in the Regentessekwartier in 2025, about 56 per thousand residents, and 1,004 in the Valkenboskwartier, about 54, against 69 across The Hague.

Neither district is a problem, and neither is the Statenkwartier.

And the housing is old in the way old housing is old.

Ninety-three per cent pre-1945 means poor insulation, single glazing on the cheaper lettings, damp in ground-floor flats and heating bills that will surprise you.

Check the energy label, and read the cost of living in The Hague before you assume a cheap rent is a cheap month.

For the most house per euro within cycling distance of the centre, these two are the answer, and which district suits which life says who should take it.

Sources

• AlleCijfers, wijk Regentessekwartier (gemeente Den Haag): 14,376 inhabitants in 2026; 8,015 households of which 4,470 single-person, average household size 1.8; origin “herkomst uit Nederland: 42%, herkomst uit Europese landen: 22% en herkomst uit landen buiten Europa: 35%” in 2025; average WOZ value 389,000 euro in 2025; 35% owner-occupied, 17% corporation rental, 48% private rental; 87% flats and 71% built before 1945; average income 37,900 euro per resident and 45,700 euro per earner in 2024; population density 15,841 per km2; 813 registered crimes in 2025, 56 per 1,000 inhabitants
• AlleCijfers, wijk Valkenboskwartier: 18,159 inhabitants in 2026; 10,230 households and average household size 1.8; origin 45% Netherlands, 23% Europe, 32% outside Europe in 2025; average WOZ value 333,000 euro in 2025; 49% owner-occupied, 11% corporation rental, 40% private rental; 92% flats and 93% built before 1945; average income 35,000 euro per resident and 42,000 euro per earner in 2024; population density 17,410 per km2; 1,004 registered crimes in 2025, 54 per 1,000 inhabitants
• AlleCijfers, gemeente Den Haag: average WOZ 383,000 euro in 2025, average income 35,200 euro per resident in 2024, 69 registered crimes per 1,000 inhabitants in 2025
• Dutch Wikipedia, Regentessekwartier: laid out between 1885 and 1910 in the former polder ‘t Kleine Veentje; streets named after commanders of the Belgian Uprising in the part historically called the Veldherenkwartier and after inventors elsewhere; “In 1891 tekende de directeur van de Dienst Gemeentewerken, I.A. Lindo, een ontwerp waar voor het eerst in Den Haag de diagonaal voorkwam: de Regentesselaan”; the former swimming baths De Regentes, the largest covered bathing and swimming establishment in Europe when built in 1920, a theatre since 1997
• Dutch Wikipedia, Valkenboskwartier: construction started in 1903 following the 1902 boundary adjustment transferring the area from Loosduinen to Den Haag; known as the Uitvinderswijk because many streets are named after inventors and scientists; built for the middenstand and the better-paid worker; characterised by long uninterrupted facade walls and the small depth of the building blocks; one of the nineteen protected townscapes of The Hague
• Dutch Wikipedia, Weimarstraat: a long shopping street in the Regentessekwartier running between the Koningin Emmakade and the Valkenboskade, about 1.4 km, named in 1894; the Regentessekwartier designated an urban renewal area in 2000 and the new Segbroek district office and police station opened in 2004; Theater De Regentes a municipal monument on the street
• Gemeente Den Haag, parking maps and charges: the Regentessekwartier zone charges “maandag tot en met zondag van 18.00 tot 24.00 uur”, with the Valkenboskwartier zones on the same seven-day evening pattern, as published on denhaag.nl and retrieved in September 2026
• DenHaag.com, De Fahrenheit: “De Fahrenheit shopping district forms the heart of the well-loved Hague residential area known as Bomenbuurt”; chain stores including HEMA, Blokker, Hunkemoller, Ici Paris, Bruna, Bart Smit, Albert Heijn and Plus; “Tram 3 (from Station Den Haag Centraal) and tram 12 (from Station Den Haag HS) both stop at Fahrenheitstraat”
• DenHaag.com, Weimarstraat: “This 1.5-kilometre-long street winds from Koningin Emmakade to Valkenboschlaan, in the middle of the atmospheric Regentessekwartier”; “Weimarstraat is the shopping street in The Hague for those who love unique finds and local entrepreneurs”