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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

Hand drawn map of Japan’s intricate rail system

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Artist Wyton Cho has hand drawn Japan’s rail system. The colourful lines intersect and meet at stations, and present an immediate sense of how vast the system is.

To feed more of your transit map fetish, check out this blog.

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One comment

  1. Interesting work but I am puzzled by the term “Japan’rail system” as it would be impossible to have all the rail systems of Japan on one single map…it would be too big for a computer screen.

    Do you mean the Tokyo rail system (2 different subway companies plus trains from JR and other railway companies) .
    Here is a Tokyo rail transit map
    http://www.tokyometro.jp/en/subwaymap/pdf/routemap_en.pdf
    Note that this map only shows the central area i.e Tokyo itself only. You can see fine lines by the periphery that are commute train lines to farther suburbs

    In the Osaka region, much smaller than Tokyo’s, they have 8 subway lines in Osaka plus 6 different private rail companies…
    http://www.asisbiz.com/Japan/Osaka-Trains/images/0-Osaka-Railway-and-Subway-Map-Brochure-Nov-2009.jpg
    Other big towns have something like that–but different.. imagine ALL that on a map.. .