Birds in Road Names

Characterizing the cultural significance of birds across the United States is challenging for a variety of reasons. Foremost among them: it is not obvious how to measure “cultural significance” of any species, especially in granular detail at a continental scale. Fortunately, high-resolution road data can be leveraged to address the issue.

The current exploration of road data is grounded in several premises: 1) people use names to label features of natural and built environments, including roads; 2) names are not chosen randomly; and 3) names can be used to explore connections between people and birds.

I used several text-matching strategies to identify references to birds in the names of roads across the United States. Then, I aggregated results by county. Maps and summary statistics offer perspective on the cultural salience of birds and invite speculation about the processes giving rise to patterns of geographic and taxonomic variation.

Distributions of Bird-named Roads

  • Eagle

  • Grouse

  • Mockingbird

  • Meadowlark

  • Loon

  • Hawk

  • Heron

  • Cardinal

  • Hummingbird

  • Duck

  • Sparrow

  • Pigeon

  • Quail

  • Jay

  • Bluebird

  • Roadrunner

  • Turkey

  • Whip-poor-will

  • Gull

  • Oriole

  • Crow

Abundance of Bird-named Roads

Some types of birds are more likely than others to be referenced in road names. “Eagles” are associated with approximately 9500 km of roads across the United States.

Prevalence of Bird-named Roads

Some counties are much more likely than others to contain bird-named roads. In one county, approximately 30% of all road lengths reference birds. In others, 0% refer to birds.