Data study

The hairpin census

4,345 hairpins across 803 verified roads, every one counted from the road’s real mapped geometry. The legends round up; we measure. Free to cite with a link.

#	Road	Country	Hairpins	Per mile
1	Spiti Valley RoadIndia	India	109	0.6
2	Leh–Manali HighwayIndia	India	100	0.4
3	Tribhuvan HighwayNepal	Nepal	81	1.2
4	Stelvio PassItaly	Italy	75	2.6
5	Punta OlímpicaPeru	Peru	60	1.1
6	BP HighwayNepal	Nepal	53	0.7
7	Coll de SóllerSpain	Spain	50	7.8
8	Col de la LombardeFrance	France	44	2.1
9	Sichuan–Tibet HighwayChina	China	41	0.2
10	Babusar PassPakistan	Pakistan	41	0.6
11	Tsugaru Iwaki SkylineJapan	Japan	40	7.1
12	Siddhartha HighwayNepal	Nepal	39	0.4
13	Col de BrausFrance	France	38	2.9
14	Abano PassGeorgia	Georgia	38	0.7
15	Vršič PassSlovenia	Slovenia	36	2.9
16	Langada PassGreece	Greece	36	1.1
17	Duku HighwayChina	China	36	0.1
18	Khardung LaIndia	India	35	0.5
19	Passo delle Erbe (Würzjoch)Italy	Italy	33	1.1
20	Passo di Croce DominiItaly	Italy	33	1.3
21	Tongtian AvenueChina	China	33	4.7
22	Passo GiauItaly	Italy	32	2.6
23	San Bernardino PassSwitzerland	Switzerland	32	3.4
24	Col de la BonetteFrance	France	31	1.1
25	Route de CilaosFrance	France	31	1.4

Method

Every road in the catalogue is traced from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors). The line is walked bend by bend and a hairpin is registered when the road folds back past a threshold angle, the same measurement the corner counts and tightness scores use across this site and the Routes app. Where our measured figure disagrees with a road’s legend, we publish the measurement. How roads get verified ›

Cite any figure here with a link to bestdrivingroads.com. For the full dataset terms, see using this data.

Census questions

Which road has the most hairpins in the world?

Of the 803 verified roads in our catalogue, Spiti Valley Road leads with 109 measured hairpins. Every count comes from the road’s mapped geometry (a hairpin is a bend tighter than a threshold angle), not from tourist-board copy.

Which road packs hairpins tightest?

Coll de Sóller: 50 hairpins in 6.4 miles, about 7.8 per mile. The famous names are longer, so the density crown often surprises people.

How are hairpins counted?

From the mapped line of each road: the geometry is walked bend by bend and a hairpin is registered when the road folds back past a threshold angle. That is why our figures sometimes disagree with the legend, and when they do, we publish the measurement.