All Streets is an art project that charts the United States’ 240 million individual roads and visualizes how they form the American landscape. Seriously, the map’s creator Ben Fry disregarded all of the country’s geographical features and built environments, focusing only on America’s vast networks of roads. Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing system (TIGER), Fry developed software that would allow him to tile high-resolution maps fragments to make the 2′ tall by 3′ wide poster. Click for more images!
When looking at the map, the first thing that you notice is that the country is literally bounded by roads, some of which border our neighbors to the north and south while others seem to float atop and over bodies of water. There’s also the dark, denser mesh of lines which, of course, indicate more developed areas and urban cores and conurbations. Although the country’s terrain wasn’t mapped, the logic of roads reveals topographical features such as the Appalachian Mountain Chain, the outline of Lake Michigan, and the barrenness of Death Valley.
The work is being prepped for an exhibition, while prints are on sale for $30. See more at Fathom.
