Photo courtesy Flowingdata.com & Nathan Yau

Do you wonder what are the most popular running routes in the major cities? With the advent of gps based apps and cloud computing, it is now possible to see which routes are used most often.

Lots of people jog in places they consider lovely, however these running maps look even more like masterpieces themselves in their own right.

Statistician Nathan Yau, Ph.D., at FlowingData tested public information records from exercise app RunKeeper to map where individuals run in 22 cities throughout America, Canada and Europe. The outcome is a series of stunning and fascinating visualizations.

These maps identify the areas with the most foot traffic, shown with thicker, darker lines. Various other, less traveled paths are fainter and more difficult to see.

It comes as no surprise that parks, waterways, and various other more attractive locations have the tendency to be the most popular courses people take.

See more details at flowing data here.