Netherlands · Provincie Zuid-Holland · The Hague
Laak, The Hague — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Laak is one of the eight districts of The Hague, lying in the city's southeast where the Laak watercourse once marked the boundary with neighbouring Rijswijk. It is made up of three parts: the tightly built residential quarters of Laakkwartier and Spoorwijk, and the old industrial zone of the Binckhorst. This is a working district. Its streets are more everyday and mixed than the museum-lined centre a short way northwest, and few travellers stay here rather than in central The Hague.
About Laak
Where to stay in Laak
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Laak holds few hotels. It is where people live and work, not where visitors usually book a room, so come here for lower rents and fast tram and rail links rather than for sights on the doorstep. Across Laakkwartier and Spoorwijk the feel is plain and workaday.
The Binckhorst end is changing fast, old workshops giving way to new flats and a handful of bars, though it still reads as a building site in places. Anyone set on the city's museums or the beach will do better in the centre or out at Scheveningen.
About Laak
What are the main landmarks in Laak?
Laak's own landmark is Binckhorst Castle, a moated manor house in the Binckhorst whose oldest parts go back centuries, now ringed by workshops and new building. Beyond that, the district has few sights. The famous museums that carry The Hague's name, the Mauritshuis, Panorama Mesdag and the Escher Museum, sit in the centre to the northwest, not in Laak.
For a day among paintings you ride out of the district. What Laak offers instead is the plain street life of Laakkwartier and Spoorwijk.
What is the history of Laak?
The name Laak comes from a small watercourse, the Laak, that long served as the boundary between The Hague and Rijswijk. For centuries this was open polder land on the city's edge, with Binckhorst Castle standing among the fields as a fortified manor. Laakkwartier and Spoorwijk were laid out as residential quarters in the early twentieth century, when The Hague spilled south across the old boundary and railway workers and labourers filled the new streets.
The Binckhorst went another way. It filled with yards, garages and gasworks along the Trekvliet. That blend of homes and industry gave the district its lasting character.
Where is Laak?
The district sits between The Hague's centre and the Rijswijk border, framed by rail lines running down to Hollands Spoor station and out toward Delft. Its two residential grids, Laakkwartier and Spoorwijk, lie on either side of the Laakkanaal, while the Trekvliet canal edges the Binckhorst. Escamp is the neighbour to the southwest, Haagse Hout to the north. Water and track set its bounds.
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More areas in The Hague
Updated July 2026