Night Lights

Night Lights is a experimental cartography project which was based from a unique approach of mapping the night lights of a given area and then using that data to map other data such as roads and administrative borders.

I first started by drawing a random shape and using an ink pen dotting the map, as if they were statistical data points. Then I captured this, inverted the brightness, and added some colour to imitate the yellow sodium lighting that is used on most street lighting around the world.

Finally, I started to connect densely filled light spots with roads and, later, railways. I decided to create a somewhat dated atlas style, with different colours for regions and non basic border styles. 

Road numbering was based off of a radial-sector system, like in Spain. Hence you'll see similar numbers in the same area, while some roads that start in one place that might end two sectors away (M28, for instance).

The atlas also shows the railway network of three types and county-level administrative divisions. A couple of regions were merged in the process so I made them into autonomous districts to honour them.