Amsterdam
Rings of canals around the old centre, on the south bank of the IJ.
Cities
Cities from 15 to 50 km across, framed so the rivers, coasts, and hills they grew around fit in one image.
Austin
The Colorado River and its Highland Lakes, where the Hill Country meets the Blackland Prairie.
Bangkok
The Chao Phraya River winding through a flat delta city.
Barcelona
The Eixample grid between the Mediterranean and the Collserola hills.
Beijing
Ring roads around the old city on the flat North China Plain.
Berlin
The Spree, the Havel, and the lakes of a city on a flat glacial plain.
Budapest
The Danube between the Buda hills and the flat plain of Pest.
Cape Town
Table Mountain above Table Bay, with False Bay to the south-east.
Chicago
A near-perfect grid against Lake Michigan, split by the Chicago River.
Chongqing
The Jialing River meets the Yangtze between long parallel ridges.
Guilin
The Li River winds through the city among isolated karst hills.
Hangzhou
West Lake ringed by hills, beside the Qiantang River.
Hanoi
The Red River and the lakes of the old city, including West Lake and Hoan Kiem.
Hong Kong
Victoria Harbour between Kowloon and the steep slopes of Hong Kong Island.
Istanbul
The Bosphorus between Europe and Asia, and the Golden Horn.
Kathmandu
A city filling a bowl-shaped valley ringed by hills, drained by the Bagmati River.
Lisbon
Hills on the north shore of the Tagus estuary.
Mumbai
A peninsula of joined islands between the Arabian Sea and Thane Creek.
Nairobi
A highland city with Nairobi National Park at its southern edge.
New Orleans
The city in a bend of the Mississippi, with Lake Pontchartrain to the north.
New York
Manhattan between the Hudson and East rivers, with Brooklyn, Queens, and the Upper Bay.
Paris
The Seine curving through a city of radial boulevards.
Pittsburgh
The Allegheny and Monongahela rivers join at the Point to form the Ohio.
Pokhara
Phewa Lake and the deep gorge of the Seti Gandaki below the Annapurna range.
Quito
A long, narrow city in an Andean valley below the Pichincha volcano.
Rio de Janeiro
Guanabara Bay and the granite peaks of Tijuca, Corcovado, and Sugarloaf.
San Francisco
The hilly tip of the peninsula, the Golden Gate, and the bay with Oakland and Berkeley across it.
Seattle
A city on the ridges between Puget Sound and Lake Washington.
Shanghai
The Huangpu River curving through the city toward the Yangtze estuary.
Srinagar
Dal Lake and the Jhelum River in the Kashmir Valley.
Taipei
A basin city where the Tamsui, Keelung, and Xindian rivers meet, ringed by mountains.
Tokyo
A dense street web on Tokyo Bay, crossed by the Sumida and Arakawa rivers.
Toronto
A street grid on the north shore of Lake Ontario, cut by the Don and Humber river ravines.
Ulaanbaatar
A city stretched along the Tuul River valley, between mountains.
Varanasi
The old city lines the west bank of a crescent bend of the Ganges.
Venice
Islands of the old city in a shallow lagoon, linked to the mainland by a causeway.