Get app
Photo: Andrés Barrios, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.Test your knowledge of Amsterdam, the vibrant capital of the Netherlands. From historic canals to famous museums, how well do you know this iconic city?
Canal Curious 0–4 · Bike Lane Navigator 5–8 · Honorary Amsterdammer 9–10
Pick one
Amsterdam's extensive network of canals, totaling over 100 kilometers and crossed by approximately 1,500 bridges, earned it the popular nickname "Venice of the North." These waterways were crucial for defense, water management, and trade during the Dutch Golden Age. The 17th-century canal ring area is a UNESCO World Heritage site, recognized for its unique urban design and historic canal houses.
Pick one
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is the primary international airport serving the Netherlands and one of Europe's busiest air travel hubs. A unique geographical fact about Schiphol is its location: the entire airport is situated on reclaimed land, a polder, meaning it lies several meters below sea level. It functions as a single-terminal concept, making transfers relatively straightforward for passengers.
Pick one
Amsterdam's Bloemenmarkt is unique as the world's only floating flower market. Its colorful stalls are housed on houseboats permanently moored along the Singel canal, a tradition that dates back to 1862. Originally, flowers and plants were delivered daily by boat from the countryside. Today, it remains a vibrant attraction, offering a wide array of bulbs, flowers, and souvenirs to visitors.
Photo: Massimo Catarinella, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Pick one
The Anne Frank House is a museum in the canal house at Prinsengracht 263, where Anne Frank, her family and four others hid from the Nazis during World War II. Their secret annex, hidden behind a movable bookcase, was their refuge for over two years. Anne's diary, written there, has been published in more than 70 languages.
Photo: Dietmar Rabich, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Pick one
Amsterdam is globally celebrated as one of the most bicycle-friendly cities, with an estimated over 800,000 bicycles, roughly one for every resident. Cycling is deeply ingrained in the city's culture and daily life, facilitated by extensive cycle paths and flat terrain. Despite efforts to prevent it, thousands of bikes are annually fished out of the city's canals, often abandoned or accidentally lost.
Photo: Jorge Royan, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Pick one
The Vondelpark is Amsterdam's most famous park, a green oasis close to the city centre. It opened in 1865 as the 'Nieuwe Park' and was later renamed after the 17th-century poet and playwright Joost van den Vondel. Every summer its open-air theatre puts on free shows, from music to dance.
Photo: Dguendel, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
Pick one
The Magere Brug, or 'Skinny Bridge', is a white wooden drawbridge that still opens many times a day to let boats through. A popular tale says two sisters living on opposite banks of the Amstel built the first, very narrow bridge in 1691 so they could visit each other every day.
Photo: Zairon, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Pick one
Many of Amsterdam's canal houses have decorative gables, such as step gables, bell gables and neck gables. A beam with a hook at the top is used to hoist furniture up to the higher floors, because the stairs inside are steep and narrow. The houses are often said to be narrow because of taxes on their width, though expensive land along the canals probably mattered more.
Photo: Dietmar Rabich, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Pick one
Amsterdam's flag and coat of arms show three white Saint Andrew's Crosses on a black stripe. A popular story says they stand for fire, floods and the Black Death, but historians think they probably come from the coat of arms of the Persijn family, who were lords of the area in the Middle Ages.
Pick one
The Rijksmuseum, the national museum of the Netherlands, is home to a vast collection of art and historical artifacts from the Dutch Golden Age and beyond. Its most celebrated masterpiece is Rembrandt van Rijn's monumental painting, "The Night Watch." This iconic work is so large that it had to be significantly trimmed down in the 18th century to fit its new location in Amsterdam's Town Hall.
Photo: Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
Paste the code into your page. The player fits itself in, and every vote counts in Votur.
On WordPress, Ghost or Squarespace? Just paste the link of this page into your post.
This is how it looks
Also fun
