The U.S. is stitched together by an enormous web of roads—more than 4 million miles of them. That includes everything from interstate highways to backcountry dirt paths. In fact, if you laid out all the lane miles end to end, you’d get over 8.4 million miles of roadway. That’s enough to circle the Earth over 300 times!
What’s surprising is that most of those roads—about 76%—are two-lane rural highways. They’re the quiet workhorses of the system, connecting small towns and wide-open spaces. The rest are multi-lane roads, mostly packed into urban areas where traffic flows faster and heavier.
Between 1987 and 1997, America didn’t add many new roads—just 55,000 lane miles in total. That’s a modest 0.2% growth per year. And most of that growth didn’t come from building new roads but from widening the ones we already had. Instead of paving new frontiers, we made room on the ones already in use.
A gorgeous map created by EarthArtAustralia shows this in the most striking way: the entire lower 48 states drawn with nothing but roads. No state lines. No rivers. Just highways, streets, and dirt roads. And somehow, you can still recognize the shape of the country.
But here’s another fun twist: the names of our roads tell their own story.
Thanks to Reddit user cremepat, we’ve got a county-by-county map of the most common road suffixes across the U.S. In New England, “Road” rules. In parts of the Midwest, “Street” dominates. And in Texas and much of the Southwest, “County Road” is king.
Here’s what some of those names actually mean:
Avenue – Usually a broad road in a grid layout, often tree-lined
Street – A public road in a city, often running perpendicular to avenues
Road – A more general term, often connecting towns or neighborhoods
County Road – Managed by local government, common in rural areas
Lane – Narrow, sometimes curvy, often residential or country-style
Drive – Meandering and scenic, often in neighborhoods
Court – A short, usually dead-end street
These naming quirks aren’t just trivia—they’re clues to how places were developed. Cities with tight grids often favor “Streets” and “Avenues.” Rural areas use “Road” or “County Road” more. Suburban developers love “Lanes” and “Drives” to suggest charm and coziness.
The Top 5 Most Common Road Suffixes in the U.S. by Mileage:
Road (Rd) – 1,969,994 miles
Street (St) – 615,935 miles
City Road (City Rd) – 567,078 miles
Avenue (Ave) – 460,183 miles
Drive (Dr) – 371,544 miles
Next time you’re on a drive, pay attention to the signs. That “Lane” might tell you you’re in a quiet residential area. That “Avenue” probably means you’re in the city. Even road names can give us a peek into America’s past, and the way we’ve shaped—and been shaped by—our landscapes.
