Born and raised in Brooklyn, I grew up on the orange lines of the NYC MTA. I used to stare deeply into the huge maps at each station waiting for my train to show up and have always been in awe of how much detail is in each square inch. Here are some of the most beautiful metro/transit maps from around the world.

(I tried to focus on the most simplified “quick-view” versions meant for scanning on stations rather than intricate street combo versions. These versions have their own unique challenges like — readability, that I felt made them especially designerly.)

Japan

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New York City

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London

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Hong Kong

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Chicago

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Paris

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Moscow

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Montreal

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Melbourne

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Munich

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Oslo

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Zurich

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Madrid

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Washington, D.C.

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Boston

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Berlin

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Barcelona

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Switzerland

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Milan

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Singapore

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I apologize for any mistakes due to language barriers. Please alert me to any mistakes so I can make corrections!

What’s your favorite? I’m sure I missed some good ones, let me know in the comments!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 9:57 pm and is filed under Design, General, Inspiration, Print Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.