The Hague is called the administrative capital of the Netherlands because it houses the seat of parliament, government and the royal family. It is also known as the place where the International Court of Justice is located. A small city with many interesting monuments is one of the most attractive in the country.
The city was founded in the fourteenth century in areas that from 1248 were the hunting grounds of the counts of the Netherlands. It was then that the first castle was built here, which was gradually expanded and gave rise to the later royal seat. Today, the memento of that purpose is the colloquial name s-Gravenhage, which means a forest glade. In the 16th century, the Hague became the seat of the General States of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and in 1815 the government moved here.
The Hague boasts beautiful, historic buildings that have survived almost unchanged since the 16th century. The most important monument of the city is the former royal palace, expanded since the 13th century, in which the famous Knight's Hall is located. Today, every third Tuesday in September, parliament gathers to hear the royal throne speech. In the city center, in the neoclassical, 17th-century Mauritshuis building, there is now an art museum, which collects works of Rembrandt, van Delft, Rubens, Memling and Vermeer. You can also admire the huge Amsdag panorama, a picture with a length of 130 m, showing the shores of the North Sea with the Hague and Scheveningen.
Scheveningen is today the seaside district of The Hague, and was once a separate town. It is a summer holiday resort with beautiful leisure buildings from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, a pier and a sandy beach. There is also Madurodam, a miniature park, often called the Netherlands in miniature. Models in a scale of 1:25 are presented here presenting the most important monuments of the country.
