The canals of Amsterdam have been part of the city's landscape since the early fourteenth century. However most of the current canals were built during the seventeenth century, Amsterdam's golden age.
At that time, officials of the thriving city decided to build a series of three concentric semi-circular canals around the old city center. As time passed, hundreds of narrow streets and smaller canals fanned out from the center, crossing the semicircles and creating 90 islands and 1,280 bridges, all within the city limits. The canals ended in squares on the outskirts of the city, which were often used as parking spaces because, for years, vehicles were not permitted in the city. Canals are sealed from the North Sea via locks, purportedly a Dutch invention of the fourteenth century.