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Map of Toledo
A city on an island that is not one. The Tagus wraps around Toledo on three sides in an entrenched meander, and only from the north can it be reached by land. On the map, the river sets the shape.
What you see on the map
The meander. The Tagus arrives from the east, circles the rock to the south in a tight curve between rock walls, and leaves to the west. It is the outline that makes the map unmistakable.
The historic centre. Inside, a maze of narrow streets and slopes, the legacy of the Visigothic, Moorish, Jewish and Christian city, squeezed between the Cathedral, in the middle, and the Alcázar, the great square on the highest point.
The Jewish quarter. To the west, the old Jewish quarter, with the synagogues of El Tránsito and Santa María la Blanca, and the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes overlooking the river.
The bridges and gates. The Alcántara bridge to the east and the San Martín bridge to the west cross the Tagus; to the north, the only open side, the wall and the Puerta de Bisagra greet those arriving by land.
Which scale and paper suit it
1:9,000 on a 30 cm square, as in the picture, covers 2.5 km: the whole rock with the meander around it. Every building can be made out.
1:5,000 on A3 stays inside the old town, with every street and square, though part of the river is lost.
A topographic map shows what the aesthetic one does not paint: the drop from the rock to the river, with contour lines bunched up in the gorge.
Make it yours
Open the example and try a topographic map at 1:10,000: the Tagus valley and the cigarrales on the south bank, with their relief, make a different map of the same place.
Change all the colours at once with a theme (black ink, sepia, coral, night, blueprint) and download it as PNG. With a free account, also element by element, at 600 dpi, as vector PDF and as SVG.
