Every design for Rijswijk

Rijswijk, once written Ryswick in English, is known across Europe for a treaty: the Treaty of Ryswick, signed at the Huis ter Nieuwburg in 1697 to end the Nine Years' War. A monument, the Naald van Rijswijk, was raised in the Rijswijk Forest in 1792 to mark it, and it remains the town's best-known landmark.

What makes Rijswijk distinctive is how much it holds on to its own identity while pressed right up against The Hague. Its built-up area has grown until the two run together, and many people take it for a suburb, yet it remains a separate municipality with its own centre and its own story. That story began 5500 years ago, when people settled on the coastal dunes, and the village itself took shape in the thirteenth century amid the mansions and estates of nobles and wealthy families. The motte Den Burgh is a trace of that time.

Today the town is home to the Netherlands Patent Office and a branch of the European Patent Office, and to the Haags Openbaar Vervoer Museum. Between offices and homes there are the Elsenburgerbos, Park De Voorde and the Wilhelminapark. And in the forest, the slender Naald still points upward where it has stood for centuries.