City Roads

Step 1 — Search Your City

Type any city, town, neighborhood, or region name into the search field. The tool uses OpenStreetMap geocoding to locate the area. If multiple places share the same name, a dropdown will let you select the correct one — for example, distinguishing Portland, Oregon from Portland, Maine.

Step 2 — Wait for the Roads to Load

Once you select a location, the tool fetches all road data within that area administrative boundary from OpenStreetMap. Load time depends on the city size and road density — a small town loads in seconds, while a large metropolis may take longer.

You will see roads appear progressively as they load, drawn as thin lines on the canvas. The emerging structure of the city appears line by line.

Step 3 — Customize the Style

Use the settings panel to adjust how the map looks:

• Background color — black renders roads as bright lines; white gives a clean minimalist look; custom colors let you match any design
• Road color — default is white or black depending on background; any color works
• Line width — thinner lines emphasize the network structure; thicker lines work better for printing at small sizes
• Road type filters — include or exclude motorways, residential streets, footpaths, cycling paths, and service roads independently

Step 4 — Export Your Map

Click the download button to export. Two formats are available:

• SVG — a vector format that scales to any size without losing quality. Ideal for printing as wall art, laser cutting, or further editing.
• PNG — a raster format suitable for digital use, sharing on social media, or background images.

Grid Cities

Cities planned on a grid — New York, Chicago, Salt Lake City — produce maps with satisfying orthogonal regularity. Variations in block size, diagonal avenues cutting through the grid, and the way the grid bends to follow rivers or coastlines give each grid city a distinct character.

Organic Cities

Medieval European cities, Middle Eastern medinas, and organically grown Asian cities produce dense, intricate webs with no regular pattern. Tokyo map is famously complex — a layered result of centuries of incremental growth over terrain that resisted systematic planning.

Radial Cities

Cities designed around a central point — Paris under Haussmann, Washington D.C., Canberra — produce star-shaped or spoke-and-ring patterns. These maps have an architectural elegance that reads clearly even at small scales.

Terrain-Shaped Cities

San Francisco, Lisbon, and Hong Kong have roads shaped by steep topography — long, straight roads following ridge lines, with dense switchbacks on slopes. The road map of these cities is essentially a topographic map in disguise.