Nakhchivan in context: Street-network sprawl trends

The chart above shows SNDi trends for new street additions (left panel) and the entire network (right panel), with Nakhchivan plotted against Azerbaijan. The SNDi of new construction in Nakhchivan fell steadily, while Azerbaijan peaked in 1991-2005. Most recently, Nakhchivan's incremental SNDi fell from 2.63 to 1.81 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Nakhchivan ranked 2nd out of 20 in Azerbaijan as of 2020.

Rankings go from most connected to most disconnected — rank 1 is the most connected.

What about similarly populated cities?

• Mianxian, China
• Yunxiao, China
• Kapurthala, India
• Kadi, India
• Zhob, Pakistan
• Tando Muhammad Khan, Pakistan

In new street additions, Nakhchivan built increasingly connected streets over time, while Mianxian built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Kadi built increasingly disconnected streets over time. For the full network, Nakhchivan became progressively more connected, while Mianxian became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards and Kadi became progressively more disconnected. Notably, Nakhchivan had a more sprawly network than Kadi in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.