The chart above shows the miles of heavy rail subway track within each EU and US region. The Western EU has more miles of track than the entire US combined.
Findings
- The difference between the region with the most miles of track, the Western EU, and the region with the least, the Southern US, is 811.1 miles (1,305.5 kilometers).
- The Western EU has 12.19 times the miles of track that the Southern US does.
- The London Underground, the New York City Subway, and the Madrid Metro each have more track than each of the Eastern and Northern EU and the Western, Midwestern, and Southern US.
- The New York City Subway, the Washington Metro, BART, and the Chicago L, each have more track than the entire South.
Caveats
- Data is from 2017.
- Hawaii is currently working on building a subway system for Honolulu.
- Greece is currently working on building a subway system for Thessaloniki.
- The Western EU consists of Germany, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, and Luxembourg.
- The Southern EU consists of Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, and Malta.
- The Northeastern US consists of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Delaware, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
- The Eastern EU consists of Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
- The Western US consists of California, Washington, Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Hawaii, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming.
- The Midwestern US consists of Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
- The Northern EU consists of Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.
- The Southern US consists of Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia.
- All figures are rounded to the nearest hundredth.
Details
The South has more rail than 42 subway systems, ten of which are in the US and 32 are from the EU. Although the EU does have more subway systems, it also tends to have several smaller subway systems than the US does (in terms of track length).
The Western EU has 17 subway systems, the Southern EU has 12, the Northeastern US has eight, the Eastern EU has five, the Northern EU has three, and the Western, Southern, and Midwestern US each have three.
Sources
Wikipedia. 2019. "List of Metro Systems." Accessed February 24, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems.