neighbourhood in Breda
Ruitersbos
2,615 residents · postal code 4837 · Part of Breda zuid, Breda
Spacious, but safety lags
Ruitersbos combines its highest pillar, quiet & nature, with a 5.0 for safety, and the two belong together. The crime picture is almost entirely theft: property crime and burglary are well above the national median, violence clearly below it. What disappears here are possessions, and that is a different problem from feeling unsafe on the street.
The 8.8 for wealth & income is real but not without exception: property value is close to double the national level and social assistance is rare, while vacancy sits above the median. The 5.1 for families cannot be explained away by the primary school, which is a kilometre off; on top of that nearly four in ten residents are 65 or over.
- no. 3,863 of 13,075 neighbourhoods with a grade
- no. 16 of 55 in Breda
How Ruitersbos scores
Do some of these matter more to you than others?
Is Ruitersbos a safe neighbourhood?
For 2025, Ruitersbos comes out at 39 recorded crimes per 1,000 people present; the national middle is 24. That is high: Ruitersbos is among the 20% of Dutch neighbourhoods with the most recorded crimes.
The figures ⌄Safety
Registered crimes per 1,000 people present per year: residents plus business activity. Figures for small neighbourhoods are smoothed.
In 2025, 172 crimes were recorded here. The figures above are per 1,000 people present (residents + businesses).
Tick = Dutch median
The safest neighbourhoods in Breda →The most dangerous neighbourhoods in Breda →
The figures ⌄Amenities
Average distance to everyday amenities, compared with the Dutch median.
Tick = Dutch median
The figures ⌄Wealth & income
What the homes are worth, what residents earn and how many homes stand empty. It describes the area, not the people living in it.
Not counted
Part of this score's subject, but not part of the grade.
Tick = Dutch median
The figures ⌄Quiet & nature
How tightly the addresses sit together, how much noise there is, and how much green, trees and water surround it.
Not counted
Part of this score's subject, but not part of the grade.
Not part of the grade: air quality varies mostly between regions, barely between neighbourhoods within one municipality. WHO guideline: 5 µg/m³. Calculated annual mean, RIVM 2024.
Tick = Dutch median
The figures ⌄Families
How practical this area is with children: distance to school and childcare, and how many children already live here.
Tick = Dutch median
Who lives here
Ruitersbos has strikingly many residents aged 65 and over: 37%, against 22% in the average Dutch neighbourhood.
Age profile
- 0–1512%
NL median 14%
- 15–2512%
NL median 11%
- 25–4512%
NL median 22%
- 45–6527%
NL median 28%
- 65+37%
NL median 22%
Share of residents per age group (CBS, 2025). All five bars share one scale, so their lengths can be compared with each other.
Average household size
2.0 — smaller than average
NL median 2.3
Single-person households
47% — far more than average
NL median 31%
Households with children
24% — far fewer than average
NL median 35%
Residents per km²
1,523 — far less densely populated than average
NL median 2,364
Tick = Dutch median. Households with children counts towards Families, population density towards Quiet & nature; the other figures here get no grade.
Frequently asked questions
Is Ruitersbos a safe neighbourhood?
For 2025, Ruitersbos comes out at 39 recorded crimes per 1,000 people present; the national middle is 24. That is high: Ruitersbos is among the 20% of Dutch neighbourhoods with the most recorded crimes. One caveat: the figure counts per person present, not per resident. In a neighbourhood with many visitors — a centre, a station, a shopping area — it therefore comes out higher than residents experience. The figure is about what the police record, not about the people who live there.
How much crime is there in Ruitersbos?
In Ruitersbos the police recorded 172 crimes in 2025: theft, burglary, violence and vandalism combined. The comparison figure above (39 per 1,000) is not simply that count divided by the number of residents: we count residents plus workplaces, so a shopping street or station is not unfairly penalised, and for small counts we pull the figure towards the national average — otherwise a single incident would make a small neighbourhood look unsafe.
How is the grade for Ruitersbos calculated?
Ruitersbos scores 7.8 as its total score. That grade is a national position: we weigh five equally heavy scores — safety, amenities, wealth & income, quiet & nature and families — and see where Ruitersbos lands among every neighbourhood in the Netherlands. So it is not the mean of the five grades, but a place in the queue. All from open data published by CBS and the police.
The best and worst neighbourhoods of Breda
Same total grade, same yardstick — from the top to the bottom of Breda.