Ambalangoda 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 Ambalangoda plotted against Galle and Sri Lanka. While Galle and Sri Lanka both rose steadily, Ambalangoda's new street additions rose steadily. Most recently, Ambalangoda's incremental SNDi rose from 5.53 to 6.48 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Ambalangoda ranked 1st out of 2 cities in Galle and 14th out of 21 in Sri Lanka as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Lin, China
• Catandica, Mozambique
• Jian'ou, China
• Adis Zemen, Ethiopia
• Nurrār, Pakistan
• Guaratinguetá, Brazil

In new street additions, Ambalangoda built increasingly disconnected streets over time, while Lin built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1991-2005, then shifted to more disconnected patterns and Adis Zemen fluctuated in its street-construction patterns. For the full network, Ambalangoda became progressively more disconnected, while Lin became more connected from 1975 through 1991-2005, then grew more sprawly from 1991-2005 onwards and Adis Zemen fluctuated in connectivity. Notably, Ambalangoda had a more connected network than Lin in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.