art of the city, causing a large quarter to be torn down by the Nazi occupants. On 3 March 1945, the Royal Air Force mistakenly bombed the Bezuidenhout quarter. The target was an installation of V-2 rockets in a nearby park. Because of navigational errors, the bombs fell on a heavily populated and historic part of the city. 511 people died and the scars in the city may still be seen today.
After the war The Hague was at one point the largest building site in Europe. The city expanded massively to the southwest. The destroyed areas were also quickly rebuilt. The population peaked at 600,000 inhabitants around 1965.
In the 1970s and 1980s many, mostly white, middle-class families moved to neighbouring towns like Voorburg, Leidschendam, Rijswijk and, most of all, Zoetermeer. This led to the traditional pattern of an impoverished inner city and more prosperous suburbs. Attempts to include parts of these municipalities in the city of The Hague were highly controversial. In the 1990s, with the consent of Dutch Parliament, The Hague annexed fairly large areas from neighbouring towns as well as from not even bordering ones, on which complete new residential areas were built and are still being built
