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Mapping

Map Monday: Can you identify cities by their streets?

  • Jan 11, 2015
  • 209 words
  • 1 minutes
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Think you know your urban geography? Test yourself with this brief but entertaining quiz from The Washington Post. In the map clues provided, all extraneous cartographic data has been eliminated except for the streets, leaving a criss-crossed monochrome canvas that can be disorienting at first.

Despite the fact that most of the cities are located in the United States, Canada is not entirely forgotten, and the challenge is novel enough to make it worth your while. With nothing but the shape of streets to to indicate what is land and what is water, it creates an interesting new way to look at geography.

Author Christopher Ingraham elaborates further: “the structure of a city’s grid can tell you a lot about its history and its future: how planners built things in the past, and what their priorities might be for years to come. Some cities grew and evolved organically, while others are meticulously planned block-by-block. Many occupy a chaotic space in between, which you’ll likely find reflected in some of the grids below.”

What iconic Canadian cities would you like to see included in a future quiz? Tell us in the comments!

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