neighbourhood in Rotterdam
De Esch
4,605 residents · postal code 3063 · Part of Kralingen-Crooswijk, Rotterdam
Everything close by, safety lags
Almost a third of De Esch's surface is water. Even so the quiet & nature pillar stalls at 5.0, because greenery and tree canopy within three hundred metres are both below the national median and the noise level above it. Water alone does not make surroundings green.
The 2.9 for safety comes from two directions at once: violence is at almost three times the national median and theft at more than twice it. With more than four thousand residents those are not isolated incidents.
The 4.4 for families fits who lives here: more than six in ten households consist of one person and not even a tenth of residents are under fifteen. The primary school is seven hundred metres away, so in this case the low figure comes from the population rather than the distance — the other school distances that count in that pillar are not on record here.
- no. 12,428 of 13,075 neighbourhoods with a grade
- no. 77 of 81 in Rotterdam
How De Esch scores
Do some of these matter more to you than others?
Is De Esch a safe neighbourhood?
For 2025, De Esch comes out at 52 recorded crimes per 1,000 people present; the national middle is 24. That is high: De Esch 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, 349 crimes were recorded here. The figures above are per 1,000 people present (residents + businesses).
Tick = Dutch median
The safest neighbourhoods in Rotterdam →The most dangerous neighbourhoods in Rotterdam →
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
De Esch has strikingly many young people aged 15 to 25: 17%, against 11% in the average Dutch neighbourhood.
Age profile
- 0–159%
NL median 14%
- 15–2517%
NL median 11%
- 25–4532%
NL median 22%
- 45–6522%
NL median 28%
- 65+21%
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
1.6 — far smaller than average
NL median 2.3
Single-person households
63% — far more than average
NL median 31%
Households with children
16% — far fewer than average
NL median 35%
Residents per km²
2,726 — 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 De Esch a safe neighbourhood?
For 2025, De Esch comes out at 52 recorded crimes per 1,000 people present; the national middle is 24. That is high: De Esch 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 De Esch?
In De Esch the police recorded 349 crimes in 2025: theft, burglary, violence and vandalism combined. The comparison figure above (52 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 De Esch calculated?
De Esch scores 2.9 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 De Esch 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 Rotterdam
Same total grade, same yardstick — from the top to the bottom of Rotterdam.
Highest grades
Lowest grades
More about this area
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