The 600,000 trees that line the streets of New York City have been mapped, revealing a diverse array of greenery in the midst of one of the world’s largest cities.



Jill Hubley, a web developer who lives in the New York borough of Brooklyn, used official city data to create a visualization of where each of the 600,000 trees, which cover 168 different species, are situated.

The map shows some striking differences in the types of trees across New York, with silver maples popular in Queens but very sparse in Manhattan.

Pin oaks are widely distributed, although the London plane tree, a hybrid of the native sycamore and the oriental plane tree, is the greatest in abundance across the five boroughs. Other species mapped include poplar, English oak and ginkgo.

Hubley said she was inspired after seeing a hand-drawn map of Central Park’s trees but wanted to do something for the internet.

“Initially I was only going to do Brooklyn but I decided it would appeal to more people if I did the entire city, so I brought in all of the data,” she said. “In the end, that was absolutely the right decision, because there are striking, distinct patterns within each of the boroughs. Urban forests are vital to cities, and New York is doing a great job with tree stewardship.”

In November, New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, symbolically posed with a shovel to celebrate the planting of the one millionth tree in the Million Trees NYC initiative, which has exceeded its planting target two years ahead of schedule.

The city has yet to allow people to interact directly with its trees, however, unlike the Australian city of Melbourne, which has instructed officials to pretend to be trees in response to emails sent by the public to individual trees they were fond of.

Hubley has created a number of visualizations of New York’s environment, including a map of toxic spills in Brooklyn and the location of New York state dams.

“I’m interested in the relationship between green spaces and urban infrastructure, biodiversity within urban centers, and a host of other concerns,” she said. “I hope that my visualizations will serve as vehicles for discovery, or as a means to magnify a particular issue.”