Most bicycles recovered from waterways (city)
Who
Amsterdam
What
12,000-15,000 / year total number
Where
Netherlands (Amsterdam)

Every year, between 12,000 and 15,000 bicycles are recovered from the canals of Amsterdam, Netherlands. The bikes are retrieved by the city's water authority, Waternet, using a special claw on a crane installed on a barge, but "bicycle fishing", as it has become known, has even caught on as an unusual tourist activity. The collected bikes are either sold as scrap metal or repaired.


If the number of bicycles in the city's canals seems high, it is still only a fraction of Amsterdam’s estimated 847,000 bikes (as of 2015), which equates to an average of 1.91 bikes per household. Waternet believes that the vast majority of the bikes end up in canals as a result of theft or vandalism.

Bikes aren't the only thing regularly fished out of Amsterdam's 100 km (60 mi) of waterways. According to a dedicated municipal diving unit (part of the city's fire brigade), on average around 35 cars and 100 people fall into the canals each year too (at least those officially reported).