At its height in the 2nd century CE, the Roman Empire consisted of over 55 million individuals and extended from modern Britain to Egypt and Syria.

A network of roadways throughout the Empire facilitated its advancement and upkeep, it stays incompletely mapped and existing digitizations are low resolution.

“The research study of roadways of the Roman Empire is a centuries-old pursuit,” stated Aarhus University scientist Tom Brughmans and his associates.

“There is a wealth of info about roadways that were physically recognized in historical excavations and studies, about turning points which were put at routine periods along Roman roadways, and historic sources like the Antonine Itinerary or the Tabula Peutingeriana, explaining significant connections in between settlements, in addition to in-depth local summaries on Roman roadways.”

“However, finding and finding this variety of research study and the spatially accurate areas of the roadways themselves is prevented by an absence of an Empire-wide synthesis and digitization.”

The scientists developed Itiner-e utilizing historical and historic records, topographic maps, and satellite images.

The dataset consists of 299,171 km of roadways– a boost from a previous quote of 188,555 km– covering practically 4 million km²

The researchers associate this boost in roadway protection to greater protection of roadways in the Iberian Peninsula, Greece and North Africa and to the adapting of formerly proposed roadway paths to fit geographical truths.

This consists of enabling roadways crossing mountains to follow winding courses instead of direct lines.

Itiner-e makes up 14,769 roadway areas, with 103,478 km (34.6%) categorized as primary roadways and 195,693 km (65.4%) as secondary roadways.

The exact areas of just 2.7% of the roadways are understood with certainty, while 89.8% are less exactly understood, and 7.4% are assumed.

“Itiner-e represents the most in-depth and extensive freely available digitization of the Roman Empire’s roadways which it likewise highlights spaces in present understanding of the roadway system,” the authors stated.

“They keep in mind that Itiner-e can disappoint modifications in the roadway system with time which future research study is required to examine this throughout the Roman Empire.”

“Itiner-e might be utilized in future research study examining the impact of Roman roadways on connection, administration, migration, and illness transmission in the Empire.”

The map and dataset were explained in a paper in the journal Scientific Data

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P. de Soto et al2025. Itiner-e: A high-resolution dataset of roadways of the Roman Empire. Sci Data 12, 1731; doi: 10.1038/ s41597-025-06140-z