Directly from the 2nd century AD comes Itiner-e, the most complete interactive map ever created of the road network of the Roman Empire.
A two-thousand-year journey... Imagine being able to scroll through a digital map and follow the roads that, two thousand years ago, connected the cities of the Roman Empire. Roads that crossed mountains, deserts, and seas, carrying with them soldiers, merchants, travelers, and ideas. Today, thanks to an ambitious scientific project, that journey becomes possible. It’s called Itiner-e and is an interactive map that reconstructs in extraordinary detail the Empire’s road network at its peak, around 150 AD.
Behind this work is a team of scholars who have combined archaeology, history, and technology to create an unprecedented reconstruction. Also published in Nature and hailed as one of the greatest revolutions in digital historical research, Itiner-e is not just a map: it is a bridge between past and present. A window that allows us to understand how vast and connected Roman civilization was, at a time when mobility was synonymous with power and knowledge.
What is Itiner-e and why does it mark a turning point for historical-scientific studies
Itiner-e was born with a clear objective: to scientifically and comprehensively reconstruct the entire road network of the Roman Empire in the mid-2nd century AD, the period when Rome reached its maximum territorial extension. It is an open, digital project, freely accessible through the official platform itiner-e.org.
Its value lies not only in its visual spectacularity, but in the depth of the research that supports it. Scholars from Aarhus University and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, led by Tom Brughmans, Pau de Soto, and Adam Paout, combined archaeological and historical sources, modern and ancient topographic maps, satellite imagery, and remote sensing data. The result is a highly precise dataset that documents every single stretch of road with specific and unique metadata, linked to the ancient locations via the digital archive.
In practice, each segment of the network is citable and verifiable, with varying levels of certainty depending on the available sources. It is a scientifically transparent map, where nothing is left to interpretation: even uncertainty is represented visually, with confidence maps that show how much we know and where the data is most fragile.
Itiner-e thus fills a historical gap left by previous resources such as the famous Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World and Harvard’s Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations. Those maps, valuable as they were, had limitations in resolution and documentation. Itiner-e overcomes them with unprecedented detail: a scale capable of following every curve, mountain pass, and natural deviation. It is, in fact, the first truly "living" map of the Roman Empire, designed not only for scholars, but also for anyone who wants to travel through time with a click.
Reliability and precision of the new interactive project
Itiner-e was built with a rigorous, multi-level methodology. Each road segment has been verified and classified based on the certainty of its location: according to the study published in Nature, only 2.7% of roads can be located with absolute certainty, while approximately 89.8% are based on conjectural data and the remaining 7.4% on informed hypotheses.
This does not mean a lack of precision, but rather methodological transparency. The authors emphasize that the greater geographical coverage and greater fidelity to physical reality explain the increase in the number of kilometers compared to previous estimates.
Whereas in the past, maps followed straight lines, Itiner-e adapts each route to the terrain, mountains, and rivers, providing a more realistic and functional view.
Its reliability is also guaranteed by the open source nature of the project: anyone can access, verify, and even contribute to future data. The dataset will be updated with new archaeological discoveries, expanding our knowledge of Roman roads not only as infrastructure, but as tools for economic, administrative, and cultural interconnection.
Almost 300,000 kilometers of roads? This is how long the Empire’s road network is, according to Itiner-e
The numbers speak louder than words to convey the significance of this discovery. According to the team from Aarhus and Barcelona, the Roman Empire’s road network comprised a staggering 299,171 kilometers, almost double the previous estimate from the Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations, which stood at 188,555 kilometers.
Of these, 103,477 kilometers were main roads, the arteries connecting the great centers of power—from Rome to London, from Carthage to Antioch—while over 195,000 kilometers were secondary roads, local paths, and regional routes that ensured the capillary presence of the Empire. In total, 14,769 road segments spread across approximately four million square kilometers, linked by a geographical logic that takes into account mountain ranges, passes, and deserts.
The most detailed regions are the Iberian Peninsula, Greece, and North Africa, where coverage has expanded enormously thanks to new remote sensing techniques. The spatial accuracy and reconstructed road density allow us to understand how the Roman system was not only imposing, but also intelligent: designed to connect, administer, and control a territory of over 55 million people.
Let’s get back to the focal point. Itiner-e is therefore not just a map: it is a key to understanding ancient mobility and how Roman roads influenced European history, from trade routes to the spread of disease, to migration. Each line traced tells a fragment of the world that was, a world where all roads – truly, and not just in a manner of speaking – led to Rome.
Original article published on Money.it Italy. Original title: Quasi 300.000 chilometri di lunghezza. Questa mappa mostra tutte le strade dell’impero romano
