A Mesmerizing Visualization Of Every US Highway In Numbered Order

Many of us drive on a highway every day on our way to and from work without thinking about the larger national highway system. We can't think of a better way to look at the big picture of national highways than this mesmerizing GIF by Redditor u/tns22x showing each highway in the US numbered highway system in numerical order. 

This visualization shows only the US numbered highways, not interstate highways, state highways or county highways. One way to tell the difference between US highways and interstate highways is that US numbered highways are labeled with the black and white shield logo shown above, while interstate highways are marked with a red, white and blue shield. Another fun fact about US highways that's somewhat noticeable on the GIF is that the north-south highways are usually labeled with odd numbers, while the east-west highways have even numbers. You can learn much, much more about the intricacies of the American highway system(s) on Wikipedia — or you can just enjoy watching those highways gradually build the shape of the good old' contiguous United States in the animation above.

[Via Reddit]