Maplab

Get Lost in this New-and-Improved Map of America's Megaregions

Ever been to the “Corntassel” corridor?
Nelson and Rae

Ever been to Entrelacs? Or visited Mayflower in winter? (Don’t—it’s wicked harsh.) A new interactive map will let you take trips to the American megaregions you never knew.

Garrett Dash Nelson, a postdoctoral student in geography at Dartmouth College, and Alasdair Rae, an urban data analyst at the University of Sheffield, analyzed 4 million point-to-point commutes, representing 130 million travelers, sculpting the data to show the heaviest volumes of daily flows. (Sound familiar? CityLab wrote about it: Read more about their methods here.) This process revealed constellations of neighboring cities, connected by interlocking workforces—a new way of visualizing America’s megaregions, a concept that has lately gained steam among planners and economists. Nelson and Rae mapped and published their findings in PLOS One last December.