Narrowboat
（重定向自Narrow boats）
![Modern narrowboats for leisure cruising, Bugsworth Basin, Buxworth, Derbyshire, England](/Images/godic/202501/29/Bugsworth_0580693538.jpg")
![Boat drawn by horses on a towpath in Germany](/Images/godic/202501/29/Finowkanal-treidel3538.jpg")
![Historic working narrow boats on the Macclesfield Canal in Cheshire, England. The leading boat, Forget Me Not, is hauling the un-powered butty Lilith. This became a familiar operating pattern once motors began to replace horses.](/Images/godic/202501/29/Working_canal_boats3539.jpg")
![Decoration on a traditional English narrowboat: roses on the water can (top) and castles on the open doors to the cabin](/Images/godic/202501/29/Narrowboat_decoration3539.jpg")
A narrowboat or narrow boat is a boat of a distinctive design, made to fit the narrow canals of the United Kingdom.
In the context of British Inland Waterways, "narrow boat" refers to the original working boats built in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries for carrying goods on the narrow canals (where locks and bridge holes would have a minimum width of 7 feet (2.1 m); some locks on the Shropshire Union are even smaller). The term is extended to modern "narrowboats" used for recreation and more and more as homes, whose design and dimensions are an interpretation of the old boats for modern purposes and modern materials.