neighbourhood in Hilversum
Centrum
3,880 residents · postal code 1211 · Part of Centrum, Hilversum
Everything close by, little space
A 9.8 for amenities alongside a 2.6 for quiet & nature and a 2.6 for safety: Hilversum's Centrum is the textbook case of what a city centre costs and delivers. Restaurants, supermarket and GP are all within a few hundred metres, and set against that is noise exposure well above the national median, with barely any greenery around.
The offence rate here is five times the Dutch middle, and that comes overwhelmingly from theft — but not exclusively. Violence too runs sharply above the middle, and violence weighs heaviest in the pillar. So anyone moving here is not only trading bicycles for walking distance.
The wealth & income pillar is the most mixed of the five. The share of households on a high income sits above the national figure and the share on a low income below it, but property values remain under the Dutch median and vacancy is double. For a centre with this level of amenities, that last number is the most striking on the whole page.
- no. 11,737 of 13,075 neighbourhoods with a grade
- no. 36 of 37 in Hilversum
How Centrum scores
Do some of these matter more to you than others?
Is Centrum a safe neighbourhood?
For 2025, Centrum comes out at 121 recorded crimes per 1,000 people present; the national middle is 24. That is high: Centrum 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, 890 crimes were recorded here. The figures above are per 1,000 people present (residents + businesses).
Tick = Dutch median
The safest neighbourhoods in Hilversum →The most dangerous neighbourhoods in Hilversum →
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
Centrum has strikingly many residents aged 25 to 45: 43%, against 22% in the average Dutch neighbourhood.
Age profile
- 0–1512%
NL median 14%
- 15–2511%
NL median 11%
- 25–4543%
NL median 22%
- 45–6522%
NL median 28%
- 65+13%
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
1.7 — smaller than average
NL median 2.3
Single-person households
57% — far more than average
NL median 31%
Households with children
19% — far fewer than average
NL median 35%
Residents per km²
9,768 — far more 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 Centrum a safe neighbourhood?
For 2025, Centrum comes out at 121 recorded crimes per 1,000 people present; the national middle is 24. That is high: Centrum 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 Centrum?
In Centrum the police recorded 890 crimes in 2025: theft, burglary, violence and vandalism combined. The comparison figure above (121 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 Centrum calculated?
Centrum scores 3.3 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 Centrum 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 Hilversum
Same total grade, same yardstick — from the top to the bottom of Hilversum.
More about this area
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