Main arteries and local streets: the two road classes counted
Our counts from the Census Bureau's TIGER/Line Feature Names files: 8,261,451 streets in 3,231 counties.
Our take written by All Streets
The Census classes 157,991 of the streets we count as secondary roads, S1200, and 8,103,460 as local streets, S1400, by the class of the edges that carry the name.
Main is the base name on 6,574 secondary roads, N Main on 1,418 and S Main on 1,394. Route numbers such as 20 and 6 appear as base names where a road's primary name is a number.
Our reading of the counts on this page. It adds no facts of its own.
| MTFCC | Streets | Share |
|---|---|---|
| S1200 | 157,991 | 1.9% |
| S1400 | 8,103,460 | 98.1% |
Secondary roads are main arteries, usually in the U.S. highway, state highway, or county highway system.
Generally, a paved non-arterial street, road, or byway that usually has a single lane of traffic in each direction.
| Base name | Streets |
|---|---|
| Main | 6,574 |
| N Main | 1,418 |
| S Main | 1,394 |
| Washington | 937 |
| Broadway | 897 |
| 1st | 793 |
| State | 738 |
| 2nd | 721 |
| 3rd | 623 |
| 4th | 622 |
| 20 | 586 |
| 6 | 521 |
| River | 496 |
| Broad | 480 |
| 1 | 477 |
| 5th | 467 |
| Church | 466 |
| 2 | 458 |
| Lincoln | 455 |
| 70 | 449 |
| 60 | 434 |
| 59 | 430 |
| 50 | 415 |
| 16 | 410 |
| 27 | 410 |
Rows from the Census files
Verbatim field values from the county Feature Names files behind this page's counts. Each is one edge record; our count treats each LINEARID as one street.
| File (county) | TLID | LINEARID | FULLNAME | NAME | PREDIRABRV | PRETYPABRV | SUFTYPABRV | SUFDIRABRV | MTFCC | PAFLAG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| tl_2025_26033_featnames.zip Chippewa County, Michigan | 130551301 | 1101000363864 | State Hwy 80 | 80 | State Hwy | S1200 | P | |||
| tl_2025_08071_featnames.zip Las Animas County, Colorado | 112758108 | 1101007255800 | State Hwy 10 | 10 | State Hwy | S1200 | P | |||
| tl_2025_26033_featnames.zip Chippewa County, Michigan | 130550732 | 1101000353201 | NFS Rd 3 | 3 | S1400 | P |
Our checker re-read these rows from census.gov on October 14.
How we counted
Method note Our count of Census linear features (streets, as defined in the method note): one street is one LINEARID that carries a primary name (PAFLAG P) on at least one edge classed S1200 or S1400, with a non-blank NAME, across 3,234 of the 3,235 county files; the file for St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands was answered by the Census server with a "Request Rejected" page and is left out. A name counts once per LINEARID, so a road the Census splits into several linear features counts more than once. Full method and definitions →
The MAF/TIGER System breaks/ends linear elemental features when the feature name changes. All spelling differences result in a new feature. Features will also break at county boundaries, changes in primary/alternate designation, MTFCC, and gaps in the geometry.
More questions
- Main Street or Second Street: which name is on more streets?
- How many streets are numbered, from 1st to 100th?
- The 100 most common street names in the U.S.
- Street, Road, Avenue or Drive: how U.S. streets end
- County Road, Calle, Via: street types that come first
- North, South, East, West: directions in street names
- Streets named for presidents' surnames
- Oak, Pine, Maple: tree names on U.S. streets
- Red, Green, White: color names on streets
- Deer, Fox, Eagle: animal names on streets
- Lake, River, Creek: water in street names
- Hill, Ridge, Valley: land in street names
- Church, School, Mill: places of work and worship on street signs
- The longest street names in the Census files
- A Street to Z Street: single-letter street names
- Streets with Martin Luther King Jr.'s name
- Streets in every state, and each state's most common name
- How many Broadways are there?
- Ohio Avenue, Texas Street: street names that match state names
- Calle, Camino, Paseo: selected Spanish street types
- Streets with a County Road or County Highway prefix
- Street names found in just one county
- Second Street or 2nd Street? Spelled or digits, by state