Living in the City of Peace and Justice

In the first two years at LUC The Hague, students live in custom-built student housing facilities located close to The Hague’s international train station, Den Haag HS. The student housing provides a second focus for student life away from the academic hot-house of the college building. In the third (final) year of their study, the students can move to other housing facilities in The Hague.

The City of The Hague

Classy and traditional, yet also sophisticated and worldly is how The Hague is often described. The Hague is the capital of the province of South Holland and lies on the North Sea. The city has many faces. When you enter The Hague by rail, bus or car, the first thing you see is its imposing and impressive skyline.

The Hague is a cosmopolitan city bursting with style and culture, full of parks and elegant homes. Amsterdam might be the national capital, but the Hague (pop. 480,000) has always been the seat of national government and the official residence of the Dutch monarchs. In the beginning, the counts of Holland chose a small village named Haag (from the Dutch for ‘hedge’) as the setting for their hunting lodge, which was why the town was later called ’s-Gravenhage (the Count’s Hedge). Lots of greenery from the original hunting grounds remains in the city’s parks, gardens and forests.

The Hague is a good place to live and work and a great place to study (approximately 28.000 students live in The Hague). With a more than lively nightlife, fair-priced restaurants and Scheveningen beach, it lends itself as the perfect place to spend a year or more.

The Netherlands is host to five international courts: the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Court and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The first four are situated in The Hague as is the EU’s criminal intelligence agency Europol and judicial co-operation agency Eurojust. This has led to the city being dubbed ‘the world’s legal capital’.

More than 150 international organisations and the headquarters of several multinational corporations are present in the city. More than 104 embassies and consulates are based  in The Hague. The Hague is also the residenceof Queen Beatrix and her family.