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During it sixteen years of operation, the Truong Son Route became a complex transportation network that ran through North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. It was an ever evolving network of roads, trails, tracks, bypasses, decoys, army stations, storage depots, pipelines, and communications. Estimates put the total road length at 20,000 kilometers (12,427 miles).
In the image above, a generalized trail map was created using ArcGIS® by connecting known locations (cities) in which the trail network existed at one point in time. Cities are depicted on the map using white dots, and their locations were verified using gazetteers, topographic maps, and Google Earth. The Truong Son Route is shown on the map using black lines. It is important to note that these lines have been “generalized” between cities. Since there is limited data on the exact position of each trail, it is very difficult to accurately position the trails between cities. Also, only parts of the Truong Son Route with verified locations are portrayed on the map. As a result, the final map is very “generalized” and incomplete when compared to the actual Truong Son Route.
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