Flyover
All 151 cities
Every city Flyover can drop you over, grouped by region. The note beside each one is the tell — what the skyline, coastline or street grid actually reads as from the air.
How to read a city from above
From altitude you lose signage, language and number plates — the things that make street-level guessing tractable. What you get instead is shape. Water is the strongest signal: a bay, a river bend, a harbour or a coastline narrows the field faster than anything else, because cities grow around water in ways that are hard to confuse.
After water comes the street pattern. A hard rectilinear grid usually means a city planned after it was founded, which skews toward the Americas and toward post-war rebuilds. A tangle of irregular streets around a dense core usually means the core is old. Then look at where the towers are: one clustered downtown reads differently from several scattered clusters, which reads differently again from a low city with a single spike.
Europe
- Amsterdam — canal rings
- Antwerp — river port
- Athens — ancient hills
- Barcelona — coast and blocks
- Berlin — broad avenues
- Bilbao — river valley
- Bordeaux — river crescent
- Brussels — ring roads and squares
- Budapest — danube split city
- Cologne — cathedral river
- Copenhagen — harbor islands
- Dublin — bay and low grid
- Edinburgh — castle ridge
- Florence — duomo and river
- Frankfurt — river skyline
- Glasgow — clyde valley
- Hamburg — harbor and canals
- Helsinki — coast and islands
- Krakow — old square and river
- Lisbon — hills and river mouth
- London — river bend
- Lyon — two rivers
- Madrid — dry inland capital
- Manchester — industrial core
- Marseille — old port and hills
- Milan — flat urban grid
- Munich — historic core
- Naples — bay and volcano
- Nice — riviera curve
- Oslo — fjord bowl
- Palermo — sicilian harbor
- Paris — radial avenues
- Porto — river mouth
- Prague — river and castle
- Riga — baltic river city
- Rome — ancient core
- Rotterdam — modern port city
- Seville — river and old core
- Stockholm — islands and water
- Tallinn — old town harbor
- Turin — alpine grid
- Valencia — dry river park
- Venice — lagoon islands
- Vienna — ring road
- Warsaw — river and palace axis
- Zurich — lake and old town
North America
- Atlanta — tree canopy and skyline
- Austin — river bend and hills
- Baltimore — inner harbor
- Boston — harbor and old core
- Calgary — prairie skyline
- Charlotte — uptown grid
- Chicago — lakefront grid
- Cleveland — lakefront downtown
- Dallas — flat metro grid
- Denver — plains and mountains
- Detroit — river border city
- Honolulu — coast and crater
- Houston — bayou sprawl
- Indianapolis — monument circle grid
- Kansas City — river and rail yards
- Las Vegas — strip and desert
- Los Angeles — basin, hills, freeways
- Louisville — ohio river curve
- Memphis — riverfront bluff
- Miami — waterfront towers
- Minneapolis — lakes and river
- Montreal — island city
- Nashville — river downtown
- New Orleans — crescent river
- New York — islands, dense towers
- Orlando — lakes and suburbs
- Ottawa — river capital
- Philadelphia — rivers and dense grid
- Phoenix — desert valley grid
- Pittsburgh — three rivers
- Portland — river bridges
- Quebec City — old city bluff
- Sacramento — river capital grid
- Salt Lake City — mountain basin
- San Antonio — riverwalk core
- San Diego — bay and peninsula
- San Francisco — Bay, bridges, hills
- San Jose — silicon valley basin
- Seattle — water, downtown spine
- St. Louis — arch and river
- Tampa — bayfront city
- Toronto — tower and lake
- Vancouver — harbor and mountains
- Victoria — inner harbor
- Washington — mall and monuments
Asia-Pacific
- Adelaide — parkland ring
- Auckland — harbor and cones
- Bangkok — river and dense sprawl
- Beijing — ring-road capital
- Brisbane — river bends
- Busan — harbor mountains
- Christchurch — flat grid and hills
- Fukuoka — bayfront city
- Gold Coast — beach towers
- Hanoi — lakes and old quarter
- Hiroshima — river delta
- Ho Chi Minh City — river sprawl
- Hobart — river and mountain
- Hong Kong — harbor towers
- Jakarta — coastal megacity
- Kobe — mountain harbor
- Kuala Lumpur — twin towers basin
- Kyoto — temples and basin
- Macau — casino peninsula
- Manila — bayfront capital
- Melbourne — river and grid
- Nagoya — broad urban plain
- Osaka — bay and rivers
- Perth — river and coast
- Sapporo — northern grid
- Seoul — river megacity
- Shanghai — river towers
- Singapore — marina skyline
- Sydney — harbor landmarks
- Taipei — basin and tower
- Tokyo — vast urban plain
- Wellington — harbor amphitheater
- Yokohama — bay skyline
Latin America
- Bogota — andes plateau
- Buenos Aires — river plate grid
- Guadalajara — inland grid
- Lima — coastal desert
- Medellin — valley city
- Mexico City — highland megacity
- Monterrey — mountain skyline
- Panama City — canal coast towers
- Rio de Janeiro — mountains and beaches
- Salvador — bay peninsula
- Santiago — andes basin
- Sao Paulo — endless skyline
the Middle East
- Abu Dhabi — island capital
- Doha — bay crescent
- Dubai — coast and towers
- Istanbul — strait city
- Jerusalem — hills and old city
- Muscat — mountain coast
- Riyadh — desert capital
- Tel Aviv — mediterranean grid
Africa
- Alexandria — mediterranean corniche
- Cairo — nile megacity
- Cape Town — table mountain bay
- Casablanca — atlantic grid
- Johannesburg — highveld skyline
- Marrakesh — red city plain
- Nairobi — green highland core