The plan view is used in crystallography and materials science to show the positions of atoms in crystal structures. However, it is not widely used in teaching general chemistry. In this contribution, we introduce the plan view, and show these views for the simple cubic, body-centered cubic, face-centered cubic, hexagonal close packed, CsCl, NaCl, diamond cubic, ZnS, and CaF[subscript 2] unit cells. A survey administered to college-level general chemistry students indicates that the plan view helps them to better understand crystal structures.