Roman road network was 59% larger than thought
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Researchers from multiple universities mapped approximately 186,000 miles of Roman roads across the empire at its largest extent in the 2nd century AD.
The team behind the Itiner-e project built upon previous work, like the Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations, to create a more detailed record of Roman infrastructure. They didn’t discover new roads, but rather compiled a fuller picture by including secondary routes and smaller roads often overlooked in earlier catalogs.
The Itiner-e project relied on literary sources, satellite imagery, and aerial photography to identify and map roads, classifying only 34.6% as major arteries and the remaining two-thirds as smaller routes. This work reveals that while famous roads like the Via Appia were important, the smaller connections were crucial for daily life, trade, and governance throughout the Roman Empire. The researchers used sources including Cold War-era spy satellite photos to identify subtle traces of the roads.
They also openly acknowledge uncertainty in their mapping, classifying less than 3% of the total length as definitively having remaining road surfaces, with nearly 90% inferred from indirect evidence. This transparency allows future researchers to refine the map and improve understanding of the Roman road network and its lasting impact on modern infrastructure.
