In a previous paper (Figueiredo and Amorim, 2005), we introduced the continuity
lines, a compressed description that encapsulates topological and geometrical
properties of urban grids. In this paper, we applied this technique to a large
database of maps that included cities of 22 countries. We explore how this
representation encodes into networks universal features of urban grids and, at the
same time, retrieves differences that reflect classes of cities. Then, we propose an
emergent taxonomy for urban grids