Zhoukoudian 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 Zhoukoudian plotted against Beijing and China. The SNDi of new construction in Zhoukoudian was at its lowest in 1976-1990, compared to Beijing which rose steadily and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Zhoukoudian's incremental SNDi rose from 3.96 to 4.19 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Zhoukoudian ranked 7th out of 10 cities in Beijing and 1538th out of 1843 in China as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Renk, South Sudan
• Dhaka, India
• Sirjan, Iran
• Mandla, India
• Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
• Mengcheng, China

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