Netherlands
Amsterdam Canal Ring
The Seventeenth-century canal ring area of Amsterdam inside the Singelgracht comprises an urban landscape that is a masterpiece of hydraulic engineering, town planning, and bourgeois architecture.
The port city is centered around a half-moon-shaped network of canals that were dug to extend the medieval city center. The city was expanded at the most in the 17th century when Amsterdam had become a wealthy maritime trade metropolis. The nucleus of the nomination lies along the Singel, Keizersgracht, Herengracht, and Prinsengracht. The residences here are known for their variety of gabled facades.
Community Perspective: The best time for a visit to Amsterdam is early Sunday morning and then just soak up the unique atmosphere of the city by walking along its canals. The best views of its architecture are to be had from a canal cruise boat. Hubert has recommended some canal houses that are open to visitors.
Site Info
Official Information
- Full Name
- Seventeenth-Century Canal Ring Area of Amsterdam inside the Singelgracht (ID: 1349)
- Country
- Netherlands
- Status
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Inscribed 2010
Site history
History of Amsterdam Canal Ring
- WHS Type
- Cultural
- Criteria
- i
- ii
- iv
Links
- UNESCO
- whc.unesco.org
All Links
UNESCO.org
- whc.unesco.org — whc.unesco.org/
Related Resources
- noorderkerk.org — Noorderkerk
- westerkerk.nl — Westerkerk
- annefrank.org — Anne Frank Museum
- amsterdam.nl — Canal District World Heritage
News Article
- June 9, 2021 nytimes.com — Sinkholes, Collapsing Canal Walls, Rickety Bridges: Amsterdam Is Crumbling
- Aug. 27, 2013 amsterdam.nl — 50 monumental canal houses will open up Sept. 14 & 15
- June 6, 2011 google.com — Amsterdam's famed canal belt gets its own museum
Community Information
- Community Category
- Urban landscape: Post-medieval European
Travel Information
One million visitors or more
Recent Connections
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Reclaimed land
"This was a longterm programme that inv… -
Depicted in Mizielinska Maps
Canal housesSee i.pinimg.com
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Tobu World Square
Magere Brug
Connections of Amsterdam Canal Ring
- Individual People
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Hendrick Hamel
During Hamel's time the Canal Ring Area was developing and expanding rapidly. On Hamel's return his accounts of Korea were published in Amsterdam causing a sensation -
Painted by Claude Monet
In 1871, Monet moved to Zaandam and made visits to Amsterdam. He depicted several sights in his paintings, like in "Montelbaanstoren and Oude Schans" and several paintings of the Amsterdam canals, like the Geldersekade and the Onbekendegracht. -
Carl Linnaeus
During his stay in the Netherlands (1735-1738), he visited the pharmacist and collector of exotic plants Albertus Seba at Haarlemmerstraat 110 (within the Canal Ring) - "In 1735 Linnaeus visited him twice. Seba's collection became a basis on which he started to develop his classification system." (wiki) -
Mapped or Illustrated by Blaeu
1649 mapSee www.let.rug.nl
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Peter the Great
Peter the Great stayed at Herengracht 527 during a visit to Amsterdam in 1716 to learn about ship buildingSee www.hermitage.nl
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Napoleon was here
In October 1811 Emperor Napoleon visited Amsterdam with Marie-Louise. They stayed at the Palace outside the inscribed area but records show several visits to inscribed locations including Felix Meritis for a ball on 22 October and to Hoge Sluis on Oct 13 and 20th for fireworks (the first was cancelled for bad weather!).
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- Geography
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Located in a Capital City
Amsterdam, capital of The Netherlands
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- Trivia
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One million visitors or more
In 2023, the number of visitors to the museum rose significantly over the previous year, reaching around 1.2 million. Despite the annual increase, attendance did not catch up yet with the peak in visitors recorded in 2019, before the impact of the COVID- / Anne Frank House 1.266 million (2017) -
Replica in Mini-Europe
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Tobu World Square
Magere Brug -
Replica in Legoland
Legoland Deutschland -
Depicted in Mizielinska Maps
Canal housesSee i.pinimg.com
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Depicted in the Ravensburger World Wide Series
Part of the Prinsengracht in the Amsterdam edition
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- History
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WIC
West Indisch Huis on Herenmrkt was the HQ of the WIC from 1623-47 -
Second World War
In July 1942, Anne Frank and her family went into hiding in the Achterhuis (the "Secret Annex") located at Prinsengracht 263. She was "One of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust, she gained fame posthumously with the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl, in which she documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. "See en.wikipedia.org
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VOC
Prinsengracht 191 is an old VOC warehouse
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- Architecture
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Designed by Gustave Eiffel
Roof construction of the Royal Theatre Carré -
Mannerism
Noorderkerk and other works by Hendrick de KeyserSee en.wikipedia.org
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Ideal City
"In the 17th and 18th centuries, Amsterdam was seen as the realization of the ideal city that was used as a reference urban model for numerous projects for new cities around the world." (SOV statement) -
Baroque
Dutch Baroque - several, including Paleis op de Dam -
Brick architecture
Several buildings, including the Beurs van Berlage -
Expressionist architecture
The Carlton Hotel at Vijzelstraat, De Bazel (often considered as Art Deco as well) at Vijzelstraat 32 and the former pharmacy at Keizersgracht 660. A number of bridges such as the Aalmoezeniersbrug also qualify. All were built when in the late 19th, early 20th century when access to the city centre had to be improved. Roads needed to be widened to allow for trams and ‘selective demolition’ took place.
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- Religion and Belief
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Jewish religion and culture
The large Portuguese Synagogue is actually outside the core zone, but the canal area includes minor synagogues and jewish almshouses -
Protestantism
Oude Kerk (1306) - oldest building of the city, originally a catholic church but turned protestant in 1578 after some fierce iconoclasm
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- Human Activity
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Reclaimed land
"This was a longterm programme that involved extending the city by draining the swampland using a system of canals in concentric arcs and filling in the intermediate spaces." (AB ev) -
Sea Ports
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Hermitage Museum
dependency at Nieuwe Herengracht 14, in the core zone of the WHSSee www.hermitage.nl
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Tramways
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Secret Locations
Secret church, Anne Frank House -
LGBTQ culture
The "Homomonument" on the Keizersgracht canal commemorates those who have been persecuted because of their sexuality. As such it chimes with the OUV statement that the city "was a crucial centre for ......intellectual exchange and the dissemination of humanist thought"See en.wikipedia.org
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- WHS on Other Lists
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European Capital of Culture
1987 -
Memory of the World
Diaries of Anne Frank (2009)
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- Timeline
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Built in the 17th century
Seventeenth-century canal ring area
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- WHS Hotspots
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Amsterdam hotspot
Lies in the center of Amsterdam
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- Science and Technology
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Botanical Gardens
Hortus Botanicus is within the inscribed area, it's one of the oldest in the world (1638) -
Libraries
Library Ets Haim
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- 18
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James Bond in Movies
Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
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News
- nytimes.com 06/09/2021
- Sinkholes, Collapsing Canal Walls,…
- amsterdam.nl 08/27/2013
- 50 monumental canal houses will op…
- google.com 06/06/2011
- Amsterdam's famed canal belt gets …
Recent Visitors
Reserved for members.Community Reviews
Show full reviews
The Netherlands should be praised for limiting its Amsterdam nomination to the most beautiful part of the city, the Canal Ring. It is great fun to walk along the canals and admire the façades and details of the architecture. No two gables look the same. This is of course well known and has already been highlighted by previous reviewers. So why another review? The answer is: just to recommend also taking a look behind the façades of these impressive canal houses.
In June 2023 I had a scientific meeting at Amsterdam University and I was able to extend my stay to the following weekend. I had visited Amsterdam several times before, including the obligatory canal cruise and non-WHS stuff not to be missed like the Rijksmuseum and van Gogh Museum. This time I went to some of the smaller, lesser-known museums and tried to take better photos of the houses and gables.
My first destination was the Het Grachtenhuis Museum. Here you can learn how the formerly swampy area was drained and thousands of wooden pillars were driven into the sandy soil as foundations for the new houses. The multimedia exhibition is dedicated solely to the Canal Ring and tells its history using models, 3D animations and projections etc. It is very well done.
Two of the canal houses have been converted into museums and are open to visitors (with regular opening hours): the Van Loon Museum on the Keizersgracht and the Willet Holthuysen Museum on the Herengracht. …

Amsterdam Canal Ring
There’s no place quite like Amsterdam. What makes it so special (and why we loved it) is the canal ring around Amsterdam. From our first walk along the canals, we had fallen deeply in love.
The 165 canals are criss-crossed by bridges. Getting lost in the canal ring was the best way to see the city. Wandering along the canals, we explored shops and stopped at local cafes and restaurants to eat Dutch food.
The highlight is the 75-minute canal cruise. It was the best way to explore the canals and take in the city’s unique architecture. The best views are from boat-level!
Arguably, the most famous site within the canal ring is the Anne Frank House. In the secret attic, the Frank family hid from the German Gestapo for 25 months. Frank’s autobiography was mandatory reading for us in school, so we were thrilled to see the small attic annex. It was a sad experience, but important.
The curious church of Our Lord in the Attic was another favorite destination for us in the canal zone. The protestant church, a clandestine church, hidden in plain sight for over 200 years, was a remarkable experience.
The impressive canal ring inspired similar canal projects in other cities around the Netherlands. We loved seeing Delft, Haarlem, and other cities. Amsterdam makes a great base for day-trips around the Netherlands.
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Amsterdam is special. I've been twice, and it's still impossible for my brain to understand the engineering required to dig a city out of the sea. The architecture of the houses is a product of both the canals and the local tax laws, leading to one of the most beautiful and unique townhouse styles in Europe.
Like some others on here, I find the name of the WHS a bit ugly.
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I really wish the Netherlands had made it to the World Cup Final in 2014, because that would have made my visit to Amsterdam and its canal ring even more memorable. Instead, I got to watch them play for third place in the tournament, and the city was a bit more subdued (though still festooned with orange flags). Football aside, Amsterdam was just as I had pictured it would be when I finally made my first foray from Schiphol Airport. I enjoyed walking leisurely through the city, admiring the steep-roofed rowhouses and bridges over the canals. My favorite views of Amsterdam were via a canal boat tour, which provides perhaps the best perspective of this historically mercantile city. The Anne Frank House is within the inscribed area of the World Heritage Site district, and is a sobering but worthwhile site to visit. Although Amsterdam's Museumplein, which includes the famed Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum, is not in the inscribed area, a bronze sculpture of Rembrandt's Night Watch can be found at the Rembrandtplein, inside the inscribed area.
Logistics: Amsterdam is easy to walk around, and does have public transportation, but it is well worth it to see the city at least once by boat.
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I visited this WHS various times. The Singelgracht is a 17th century canal ring area in Amsterdam that was a model of large-scale town planning and a reference throughout the world until the 19th century.
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The canal ring area of Amsterdam lays on more than 100 kilometers. With 1500 bridges linking 90 islands, the canal area is made of 5 ring canals, built at the beginning of the 17th century, and the historic centre (Centrum) of Amsterdam.
The area is really beautiful and full of historical treasure dating from the period where Netherlands and its maijor cities were a huge economic force. For the testimony it carries on and its beauty, the place really worths its WHS ranking.
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Like most people in this forum, I have been to A'dam a few times, and I have always wondered how it could be that this unique place is no WHS - especially when the Netherlands has some rather obscure sites inscribed. Well, it finally happened, even when the name is the slightly unappealing "Seventeenth-Century Canal Ring Area of Amsterdam inside the Singelgracht". Amsterdam certainly has its (well-known) downsides, but the cityscape with its pretty canals and townhouses is very attractive and makes it one of the most recognizable cities in the world. A boatride through the canals is something no visitor should miss. I guess on my next visit, I will concentrate more on the immediate historic centre away from the main tourist areas.
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I had been to Amsterdam numerous times before of course, but in “celebration” of its WHS nomination, I decided to approach the capital as if it was just another WHS city to explore. At home, I prepared by printing a map and marking on it the most promising sounding monuments mentioned in the nomination file. I also looked for more background info about these places on the web. So I set off with a map, documents and photo camera by train to Amsterdam.
The best time for any visit to Amsterdam is early Sunday morning. The city then displays its historic feels at its best – on any other day in the week it often gets too crowded and commercial.
I went on August the 1st, the day after Amsterdam's designation as a WHS. The city apparently didn't think it necessary to dress up for the occasion - the area in front of the Central Station is a big construction site. The Palace and the Maritime Museum also are totally covered because of restorations that will finish in 2011 at the earliest.
Leaving the station I turned to the left, away from the ugly Damrak. Here the 15th-century Schreierstoren is the last remaining defensive tower of Amsterdam's city wall. The wall was torn down in the 17th century to enable the prospering city to expand.
From here I walked south to the Mr. Visserplein. I decided to visit the Portuguese Synagogue, I hadn't been there before. …
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Amsterdam is a truly worthy addition to the World Heritage List, and it hopefully will start to bring some balance to the pretty esoteric sites that the Netherlands has so far had inscribed.
My own experience of Amsterdam didn’t start off too well. Arriving very early on a mid-summer morning I wasn’t particularly enamoured with the slightly tawdry atmosphere and mildly unkempt streets that I discovered. I couldn’t just really get into the city’s charms, and after a slightly confusing morning I headed off to see friends elsewhere in Holland. I returned 4 years later hoping to discover what I missed the first time around, and I certainly did.
Although I still found the first stretch of Damrak to be disappointing, the rest of the city became a joy. I especially liked the outer canals, and spent a fair bit of time wandering aimlessly around them, stopping of for food and drinks and just generally enjoying the unique atmosphere of the city. That was the thing that I think most impressed me, whilst there are many lovely buildings & museums, and there are the well documented other ‘perks’ of the city that attract so many tourists, it was the almost intangible joy of being in such a unique urban environment that really stayed with me.
With the inscription of Amsterdam, the list contains one of northern Europe’s finest urban centres, and the Dutch entries now look a little more balanced.
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