The Montreal map can be disorienting for even the best navigators. First, of course, the orientation of our streets so that they're parallel to the Saint Lawrence River means that Montreal's north is more like west and its west is more like south (so Montréal-Ouest is actually directly south of Montréal-Nord, which itself is farther south than Montréal-Est).
Then there's the geography itself: The urban area sits on an archipelago of oddly shaped islands stitched haphazardly together in a web of bridges and tunnels.
Local administrative divisions don't simplify anything.
So one artist set out on a painstaking task when they decided to trace the Montreal area using a single line. The result, posted to Reddit, is a delightful depiction of the maze of roads and waterways that shape the city and its suburbs.
from MapPorn
The post had over 11,000 upvotes on the subreddit r/MapPorn at the time of writing. Redditor u/bubator, or Buba for short, is the artist behind this feat.
Close examination of the map reveals how they worked in sections, using the local highway network as dividing lines — and illustrating the degree to which autoroutes carve up the city.
Buba used the bridges crossing the Saint Lawrence, Rivière des Prairies and Rivieres des Milles Îles to strategically link the islands that compose Montreal and Laval with the North and South Shores.
Other Redditors praised Buba for their work. Some offered jokes about what the single line could represent.
"This is actually the city's newly proposed metro line," said u/EverythingInCreation.
u/GroundPlatoon proposed a name for the winding route. "Knowing Québec and considering the length of this line, it'd probably be called 'Rue de Saint Jean de Sébastien de Baptiste de Monique de Zéphirin de Thomas de Barnabé de Justin de Jean encore de Édouard de Aléxis de André de Notre Dame.'"
Diagram by Raymundo Cassani illustrating the different official definitions of Montreal.
Map by Raymundo Cassani illustrating the different official definitions of Montreal.
Courtesy of Sotheby's International Realty Canada
Courtesy of Sotheby's International Realty Canada
Courtesy of Sotheby's International Realty Canada