Map art collections often center European capitals, American grids, and Tokyo. Cities across the Middle East and Africa offer different urban forms: old medinas, recent megacities, and river cities with thousands of years of continuous habitation.
The examples below call for different zoom levels, layers, and themes.
Dubai: the engineered city
Dubai has a planned coastline made for an overhead view. Artificial islands and marina developments extend the street network into the Persian Gulf in geometric forms.
At full metro view, Dubai forms a linear city along the coast with sharp boundaries between development and desert. In some areas, density gives way to empty land within a few blocks.
Theme picks: Desert carries warm sand tones into the developed areas. Gold Foil references the city's taste for polished surfaces, while Cobalt separates the Persian Gulf from the arid land.
Marrakech: the labyrinth
Marrakech centers on a dense old medina. Its narrow, irregular streets resemble cracks in dried clay, with no regular grid visible from above. Centuries of routes fit into a single square kilometer.
Use a close neighborhood zoom to show the alleyways and dead-end derbs. To the west, the French colonial Ville Nouvelle uses broad avenues and regular blocks, making the planning history visible in the street geometry.
Theme picks: Terracotta matches the red clay walls that give Marrakech its nickname. Desert uses dry earth tones. Warm Beige keeps the contrast low and works with the city's earthen architecture.
Cairo: the Nile city
Cairo has sixteen million people and streets ranging from eight-lane highways to narrow alleys. The Nile cuts through the center.
Enable water and orient the poster so the Nile runs vertically. Islamic Cairo and downtown put dense street texture on either bank. At city scale, themes with strong road hierarchy keep that network legible.
Theme picks: Cobalt makes the Nile the focal point with vivid blue against warm urban tones. Sepia Map gives Cairo an archaeological look. With water enabled, Midnight Blue sets a bright river against dark streets.
Cape Town: mountains meet ocean
Cape Town curves around Table Mountain, which leaves a large undeveloped void in the center of the map. Streets follow the coastline and lower slopes in a recognizable crescent.
Enable water and parks. The national park gives Table Mountain a different texture from the ocean, separating dense streets, parkland, and open water. The arrangement resembles Rio de Janeiro, where development also fills gaps between mountains and coast.
Theme picks: Ocean gives the Atlantic coast a distinct blue edge, and Forest marks parkland in green. Noir turns the undeveloped mountain into a black void inside the road network.
Istanbul: the continental divide
Istanbul straddles Europe and Asia. The Bosphorus cuts through the center, while the Golden Horn forms a triangular historic peninsula with dense streets.
Keep water enabled so the two street networks read as opposite banks of the same strait. The narrow crossing explains the city's strategic importance over the past two thousand years.
Theme picks: Burgundy adds Ottoman richness. Art Deco references the city's grand architectural tradition. Cobalt makes the Bosphorus the star of the composition.
Tel Aviv: beachfront geometry
Tel Aviv has a tight modernist grid parallel to the Mediterranean coast. Its Bauhaus-influenced blocks sit beside Jaffa's old street network to the south, placing a recent city grid next to one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities.
Theme picks: Mediterranean is the obvious and correct choice. Scandinavian brings out the Bauhaus precision. Ivory on a warm white background feels architectural and clean.
More cities to map
Nairobi spreads across the East African highlands with roads radiating from the center. Lagos, one of the fastest-growing cities on Earth, has a dense layered network. Casablanca places a French colonial grid beside a Moroccan medina, much like Marrakech at a larger scale. Addis Ababa sits at the edge of a rift valley and uses a spoke-and-ring road pattern.
These cities appear less often in map art collections than European and North American capitals, despite offering a wider range of street patterns.
Our road hierarchy guide compares the networks by line weight. Use the theme selection guide for palettes that work across regions.
Open the map creator and compare these cities at different zoom levels.