The New Student's Reference Work/Hague, The

Hague, The, the official capital of the Netherlands, situated in the province of South Holland. It lies within three miles of the North Sea and about 34 southwest of Amsterdam. It is the handsomest, most fashionable and most modern-looking city in the Netherlands, and has been described as half-Dutch and half-French. It is the seat of the government, of both chambers of the states-general and of other tribunals and public offices, in one of which the state-papers have been preserved for four hundred years. The most important public institutions are the royal library, with over 200,000 volumes; the picture-gallery, with a splendid collection of works by native painters; the town-museum of antiquities and modern art; the royal school of design and music; the town-hall; and the royal palaces. It was here, in 1899 and 1907, that the Czar's International Peace Conferences met. Population 270,109.