Lhokseumawe 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 Lhokseumawe plotted against Aceh and Indonesia. All three follow the same trend in new construction, suggesting a shared regional pattern of development. Most recently, Lhokseumawe's incremental SNDi rose from 5.61 to 5.72 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Lhokseumawe ranked 6th out of 8 cities in Aceh and 179th out of 366 in Indonesia as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Kampong Pulau Melayu, Malaysia
• Kuala Simpang, Indonesia
• Hequ, China
• Beni Adi, Egypt
• Suijiang, China
• Fengfeng, China

In new street additions, Lhokseumawe built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Kampong Pulau Melayu built increasingly disconnected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then improved and Beni Adi built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns. For the full network, Lhokseumawe and Kampong Pulau Melayu both became progressively more disconnected, while Beni Adi became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards. Lhokseumawe and Beni Adi have been growing further apart in their street-network character since 1975.