Someone made a Beijing-inspired map of London, and it's great

Image: Alastair Carr via Not Quite Tangible

Subway-mapping project shows scale of Beijing sprawl and central London's density

In the latest news in cool things that other people have done, British mapping and transit enthusiast Alastair Carr decided it would be a jolly good bit of fun to superimpose Beijing's Subway network onto London. 'Why?', you may ask. Because wouldn't it have been nice if urban planners in London had created an underground system as grid-like and, dare we say it, as sensible as Beijing's?

Image: Alastair Carr via Not Quite Tangible; hit 'Read more' at the bottom of the page for links to the full-size original.

They would probably have to go back in time and redesign London's entire layout too, but anyhow... Carr started by aligning Tiananmen Square with Trafalgar Square, both traditionally taken as the exact centres of the two cities. Then, overlaying London's map with the Beijing Subway network, he assigned London locations to that network, based on their rough geographic position in and around the UK capital.

Not quite following? Let's take Beijing's central subway network and shove it onto London:

Image: Alastair Carr via Not Quite Tangible

Comparing Beijing's real Subway (left) to Carr's 'Beijing-style Tube' (right) shows what London's underground system could have looked like, had it been modelled on such a grid. Perhaps obviously, it wouldn't quite work out: whereas the centre of Beijing is a subway void, largely occupied by the massive footprint of the Forbidden City and Beihai Park, central London is anything but – applying Beijing's grid, therefore, leaves most of London's station-laden and people-burdened Zone 1 a little underserved.

Central London as it usually stands. Image via TfL

Carr notes that some quirky flukes pop up on the new map, such as Beijing South Station, the city's biggest railway station, lining up with Clapham Junction – London's (and reportedly Europe's) busiest station. Our city's new Daxing airport also aligns well with Gatwick Airport, as do tourist hives Embankment and Wangfujing.

Just a short walk south of Trafalgar Square, Westminster is your new Qianmen. Image: Diliff via Wikimedia Commons

Sanlitun's equivalent location would be Hoxton – the birthing site of London's proto-hipsters or 'Shoreditch Twats', as they used to be known. Image: Jwslubbock via Wikimedia Commons

The Airport Express would take you all the way out to Debden International Airport, stopping at both Terminal 2 (pictured) and Terminal 3. Image: Cmglee via Wikimedia Commons

While it's really just a bit of fun, it does go to show the thought and planning behind the Beijing Subway: with an average daily ridership of 10.35 million – the busiest in the world – the capital's network of 22 lines and 370 stations does have its work cut out; at 11 lines, 270 stations and an average of 5 million rides a day, it's not really plain sailing for London. Carr's mapping also offers something to think about on chaotic central London's density, and Beijing's urban sprawl too – not that London is exactly compact itself.

Carr himself asks the burning question of 'what's the point?' to conclude. 'It goes without saying that the structure of the Beijing Subway is not a perfect fit for London, especially when the relative positions of stations is replicated exactly. But the map gives a small hint at how the London Underground could have looked if it had been centrally planned from the start and following a very specific set of principles (where lines run parallel, rarely branch and don't share track). The map also helps to translate the shape and scale of the Beijing Subway into terms which Londoners like me are likely to find more familiar.'

For the full-size, hi-def map, hit 'Read more'. 

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