Buôn Ma Thuột 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 Buôn Ma Thuột plotted against Đắk Lắk and Vietnam. The SNDi of new construction in Buôn Ma Thuột was at its lowest in 1976-1990, compared to Đắk Lắk which was at its lowest in 1976-1990 and Vietnam which rose steadily. Most recently, Buôn Ma Thuột's incremental SNDi rose from 3.78 to 5.21 between 1991-2005 and 2006-2020. In terms of the aggregate network, Buôn Ma Thuột ranked 4th out of 4 cities in Đắk Lắk and 59th out of 126 in Vietnam as of 2020.

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

What about similarly populated cities?

• Hpa-An, Myanmar
• Huairou, China
• Kunduz, Afghanistan
• Yan'an, China
• Minya Al-Qamh, Egypt
• Yoshkar-Ola, Russia

In new street additions, Buôn Ma Thuột built increasingly connected streets from 1975 through 1976-1990, then shifted to more disconnected patterns, while Hpa-An fluctuated in its street-construction patterns and Yan'an built increasingly disconnected streets over time. Looking at the full network, Hpa-An and Yan'an both became progressively more disconnected, while Buôn Ma Thuột became more connected from 1975 through 1976-1990, then grew more sprawly from 1976-1990 onwards. Notably, Buôn Ma Thuột had a more sprawly network than Yan'an in 1975 but the two have since reversed their relative ranking.