Mapping the History of the Underground

The world's first underground railway line opened in London in 1863. The Metropolitan Railway ran from Paddington to Farringdon Street. The line was a huge success (it carried 38,0000 passengers on its first day) and it wasn't long before the line was extended and new lines were built.

To this day the London Underground continues to grow. Last month tunneling began to extend the Northern Line from Kennington to Battersea. This extension to the Northern Line should open in 2020.

If you are interested in visualizing how the London Underground has grown since1863 then you can use the new Citylines interactive map. Citylines is busy mapping the history of the world's transport networks and provides mapped visualizations of the growth of city transit networks over time.

Click on a transit line or station on a city's transit map on Citylines and you can view details on when it was constructed and added to the city's transportation network. If you use the time slider in the map sidebar you can view the extent of the city's transit network for any year in its history. In other words you can use the time slider to view how the city's transit network has grown over time.