In geography a nodal point is the point at which different transport links come together. Nodal points are sometimes referred to as route centres.
Nodal Point Examples
Examples of nodal points include roads arriving together, a confluence of rivers or a rail junction.
Nodal points are often associated with settlement sites, such as a town, village or city. A market town may have formed around a road junction or an existing settlement could have additional communication lines added such as new canals or railways.
In practise, nodal points are often dense clusters of pathways rather than coming together to a clearly defined ‘point’.
It is also common for a main node to be surrounded by smaller nodes, forming a nodal region. These may simply be other crossroads or junctions, but in the extreme they may become satellite towns or cities.
OpenStreetMap data is licenced under the Open Data Commons Open Database Licence (ODbL).