Digital mapping shows most of the Roman road network is unlocated

Assembled from 23 blocks · 2 evidence · 30 related

1. Story
2. A large-scale digital reconstruction of the empire's road network reported that the precise course of only around 2.7% of Roman roads is known with certainty on the ground; the rest is inferred from itineraries, milestones, place-names and terrain modelling. An observation about the state of the evidence, not about Rome: the network everyone pictures is mostly a reconstruction.
3. Knowledge
4. The Roman Road Network
5. Via Appia
6. Digital mapping shows most of the Roman road network is unlocated
7. Connections
8. The Roman Road Network
9. Via Appia
10. The Mediterranean Sea (Mare Nostrum)
11. The Roman Legion
12. Via Appia
13. Londinium
14. Construction of the Via Appia begins
15. The empire reaches its greatest territorial extent
16. Digital mapping shows most of the Roman road network is unlocated
17. The Roman Road Network
18. Rome
19. Construction of the Via Appia begins
20. Digital mapping shows most of the Roman road network is unlocated
21. Evidence
22. Network models place total Roman road length between roughly 80,000 km (major viae only) and c. 192,861 km across c. 7,154 modelled segments at the empire's peak, depending on inclusion criteria. A 2025 mapping effort reported that the exact course of only about 2.7% of the network is known with certainty.
23. A late-imperial register of routes listing over 2,000 places and on the order of 70,000 km of itineraries from Britain to the Levant, with stage distances. It is the single most important textual source for reconstructing the road network and shows that the state maintained systematic route knowledge as an administrative instrument.