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Amsterdam has more than one hundred kilometers of canals in Amsterdam, about 90 islands and 1500 bridges. The three main canals Herengracht, Prinsengracht, and Keizersgracht, dug in the 17th century, during the Dutch Golden Age, form a concentric belt around the city, known as the grachtengordel. Alongside the main canals are 1550 monumental buildings.
Much of the Amsterdam canal system is the successful outcome of city planning. In the early part of the 17th century, with immigration at a height, a comprehensive plan was put together, calling for four main, concentric half-circles of canals with their ends resting on de IJ bay. Known as the “grachtengordel”, (the belt of canals) three of the canals are mostly for residential development and a fourth, outer canal, the present Nassau/Stadhouderskade, for purposes of defense and water management.