I've never made a city map before and thought it would be a good idea to start off this new field of cartography with a map of my hometown: Amsterdam. This way, at least I already know the shape, the landmarks and in a way the final result that I'm aiming for.

For 800 years, Amsterdam has lived with and fought against water. When you look up the city on Wikipedia, you will find an elevation of minus 2 in the information box. For centuries, there have been dams, dykes and locks controlling the water and protecting its population. The city is built on 90 Islands and has more than 100 kilometer of canals.

I've always felt a strong connection with water and in my daily work (which isn't map-making... yet...), I work in water management, protecting the land against the ever-threatening rivers and sea. Without dykes, I wouldn't be able to reach my own house anymore, unless I had a boat...

And that's what triggered me to make this map from a water perspective. It's already impossible to make a map of Amsterdam without emphasizing the water, but I wanted to do it a bit more. The map will have no streets, only water. As the challenge says, there need to be monuments on the map. And even though I do try to make some specific landmark buildings stand out from the rest (Rijksmuseum, Artis, Westerkerk, Centraal Station, Nieuwmarkt, Olympisch stadion, Tropenmuseum), I think that the most distinctive monument of Amsterdam has never really been marked as a monument: its water.

Work in progress so far, so there'll definitely be more emphasis on the water in the final result:

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