Netherlands · Provincie Zuid-Holland · The Hague
Schilderswijk, The Hague — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Schilderswijk is a dense residential quarter in The Hague, set just south of the historic centre. Its name means the Painters' Quarter, after the Dutch artists whose names fill its street signs. Few monuments stand within it. The pull is its position, a short walk from the museums and squares of the old town.
About Schilderswijk
Where to stay in Schilderswijk
Not every neighbourhood fits every trip — here's what each one is good for.
Few hotels sit inside Schilderswijk; this is a lived-in residential quarter rather than a visitor district. Its worth to a traveller is position. The Mauritshuis and the other museums of The Hague's centre lie within a short walk to the north.
Den Haag HS station, on the quarter's eastern side, feeds the wider rail network. Anyone after a broad choice of beds should book in the city centre just past the northern streets, while a room here can buy quieter nights and lower rates.
About Schilderswijk
What are the main landmarks in Schilderswijk?
Schilderswijk keeps few sights of its own. Its landmarks are the museums that begin just past its northern edge, in The Hague's centre. The Mauritshuis leads them, hung with Vermeer and Rembrandt.
Close by stand the Escher Museum, in a former royal palace, and Panorama Mesdag, a huge circular painting of the sea and dunes. Two old churches, the Grote of Sint-Jacobskerk and the Nieuwe Kerk, rise nearby, and families head for the Kinderboekenmuseum.
What is the history of Schilderswijk?
Schilderswijk rose in the last decades of the nineteenth century, when a fast-growing The Hague needed cheap housing for its workers and threw up street after street of small terraced homes on open land south of the old town. Its streets were named for painters of the Dutch Golden Age, and from them the quarter took its own name, the Painters' Quarter. It was crowded from the start.
Much of the original housing has since been cleared and rebuilt. Wave after wave of newcomers has settled here, layering the quarter's many roots.
Where is Schilderswijk?
Schilderswijk occupies a tight block of streets on the inner south side of The Hague. The historic centre presses against it to the north, and the district of Laak runs along its eastern flank. Its layout is a nineteenth-century grid.
Little open ground breaks the rows of terraced houses, and most of the city's museums lie only a few blocks beyond its northern edge.
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More areas in The Hague
Updated July 2026