Amsterdam boating data
Amsterdam on the water in numbers
How much of Amsterdam can you actually explore by boat? We mapped the city's waterways, bridges, locks, swimming spots and places to stop, and this page sets out what that data shows.
- Last checked 7 October 2026
- Rijkswaterstaat, EuRIS, OpenStreetMap, City of Amsterdam
- Curated place to stop
- Emission-free zone
Source: Floating Today data; OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); City of Amsterdam. The dashed line is the emission-free zone.
Mapped waterway
787 km
on our Amsterdam map
271 places
to stop, checked by hand
By the numbers
Amsterdam by the numbers what the water holds.
- 787 km
- of waterway on our Amsterdam map
- 686
- bridges mapped
- 22
- locks
- 271
- places to stop, checked by hand
- 45 km
- of that water inside the emission-free zone
- 416
- bridges with an official clearance
Key findings
What we found
- 416 of 686 bridges publish an official clearanceThe other 270 show as unknown: no authority publishes a height for them, and we do not estimate one.
- 22 of the 27 public toilets we map sit inside the emission-free zoneNone of the 15 swim spots do.
- Schiphol averaged 27 days of 25 °C or more a year in 2016-25In 1952-61 it averaged 10, according to KNMI daily records.
- Inside the emission-free zone, the nearest public toilet is typically 240 m awayThe median straight-line distance from the water, measured every 100 m along every canal inside the zone.
- Decades of water and weather records sit behind today’s numbersKNMI records go back to 1952 and Rijkswaterstaat records to 1981. See how the water and the weather have changed
Waterways
Amsterdam's waterways every route follows them.
Bridges
686 bridges, 416 with a published height.
Figure 1
The lowest published bridge clearance in Amsterdam is 0.75 metres
The three lowest official clearances, at the normal water level
- 1OetewalerbrugFixedClearance0.75 m
- 2Haarlemmervaartbrug (Brug 193)OpensClearance0.87 m
- 3VenserbrugFixedClearance0.90 m
The old centre is where the bridges are lowest: half of the official clearances inside the emission-free zone are under 2.3 m, against 2.6 m outside it. Floating Today calculated this from Rijkswaterstaat's figures and the City's zone boundary.
Locks and notices
22 locks, 4 notices in force today.
Places to stop
271 places to stop, each checked by hand.
Figure 2
22 of 27 public toilets and 18 of 23 charging points sit inside the emission-free zone
Share of each kind of curated spot inside the zone's boundary
- Toilets22 of 27 inside
- Charging18 of 23 inside
- Supermarkets5 of 13 inside
- Fuel2 of 6 inside
- Eat & drink17 of 63 inside
- Docking & Mooring15 of 56 inside
- Locks2 of 22 inside
- Marinas1 of 21 inside
- Swimming0 of 15 inside
- Services0 of 9 inside
- Watersports0 of 8 inside
- Boat ramps0 of 4 inside
Figure 3
Inside the zone, the essentials are a few hundred metres away
Median straight-line distance from the water inside the zone to the nearest of each
- Toilet240 m
- Mooring320 m
- Charging point460 m
- Supermarket490 m
- Fuel station1,170 m
The City also publishes 115 official boarding and landing points. 89 of them are designated for passenger vessels, 37 for loading and unloading, and 2 have charging. City of Amsterdam open data
Hiring rather than owning? We list 15 rental companies in Amsterdam, 11 of them with electric boats. See the rental companies
Swimming
15 swim spots, 6 officially monitored.
- 6 outside bathing season
Emission-free zone
About 45 km of water is emission-free for pleasure craft.
Data and methodology
How we built it from official data to this page.
Source
Official figures from Rijkswaterstaat, EuRIS and the City; waterways and bridges from OpenStreetMap.
Curate
Every place to stop is checked by hand: where to tie up, what is allowed, what is there.
Calculate
Every count, share and distance on this page is calculated from the data above.
Show honestly
Where a figure does not exist, we say so rather than estimate one.
- Sources
- Rijkswaterstaat FIS (CC0)EuRIS notices to skippersOpenStreetMap (ODbL)City of Amsterdam open dataZwemwater (bathing water register)
- Coverage
- Amsterdam, with the wider water around it on our map
- Last checked
- 7 October 2026
- Updated
- Notices, lock data and swimming status daily; places to stop as we check them; waterways and bridges with each release
- About the data
- Bridge clearances, lock data and notices are official figures, shown as published. Waterways and bridge positions come from OpenStreetMap. The emission-free zone is the boundary the City publishes.
- What we add
- The places to stop (curated by hand), and every count, share and distance on this page, which Floating Today calculated from the data above. Where a figure does not exist, we say so rather than estimate one.
Explore Amsterdam by water
You have the numbers. The map has every one of these places, and a route shows the bridges and locks on your way.