Oh no! This city has dethroned us as the third city of South Holland

For years, Zoetermeer has been in third place in the ranking as the municipality with the most inhabitants in South Holland. After Rotterdam and The Hague, our city with approximately 125,000 inhabitants came in at number three. But that has changed in the course of 2022…

Until about the 1960s, Zoetermeer was a small village that slowly grew into a real city with thousands of inhabitants. In 2017, and after a slight decrease also in 2020, our municipality had 125,000 inhabitants. This meant that, after Rotterdam (with over 600,000 inhabitants) and The Hague (with over 500,000 inhabitants), we belonged to one of the largest municipalities in South Holland.

More inhabitants, but no longer third place

In January 2022, Zoetermeer had 125,767 inhabitants. At the time, we were still number three in the ranking of the largest municipalities in South Holland. In December 2022, this number had even increased to 126,941 Zoetermeer residents. This means a growth of 0.9 percent. But what turns out? The South Holland municipality of Leiden grew much faster!

Those Leideners!

In January 2022, the city of Leiden still had 125,074 residents of Leiden, which put this municipality in fourth place. But in December 2022, the city just had 127,003 inhabitants. This means that Leiden has more inhabitants than Zoetermeer and we have lost our third place in the ranking. Congratulations to Leiden!