Wuyishan 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 Wuyishan plotted against Fujian and China. The SNDi of new construction in Wuyishan was at its lowest in 1976-1990, compared to Fujian which peaked in 1976-1990 and China which followed a zig-zag trend with an overall increase. Most recently, Wuyishan's incremental SNDi rose from 2.4 to 3.36 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Wuyishan ranked 9th out of 75 cities in Fujian and 405th 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?

• Linyi, China
• Deir Mawas, Egypt
• Jiangchuan, China
• Huanren, China
• Lingqiu, China
• Hour, Egypt

In new street additions, Wuyishan built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while Linyi fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Huanren built increasingly disconnected streets over time. For the full network, Wuyishan became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards, while Linyi fluctuated in connectivity and Huanren became progressively more disconnected. Wuyishan and Linyi have been converging in their street-network character since 1975.