Key facts
- 299,171 km of Roman road are mapped in the dataset.
- 2.7% of the length is classed as certain. The rest is conjectured or hypothetical.
- 39 roads have a well-known name, such as Via Egnatia.
- 1,165 km is the length of Via Egnatia, the longest named road.
- 39 modern countries have Roman roads.
- France has the most Roman road.
- 4th is where Italy ranks for Roman road, so not every road led to Rome.
- 11,574 km of Roman road are mapped in the United Kingdom.
- 35% of the length is main road. The rest is secondary.
- 87.6% of Watling Street lies on a numbered road today.
Every number below is worked out by a script from the road data and is rebuilt whenever the data is updated, so nothing is typed in by hand. Each fact has its own link and a button to copy it with a citation. To see where any of these roads ran, open the Roman roads map.
How long were the Roman roads?
The Roman roads in this dataset add up to 299,171 km, mapped as 14,769 segments across 39 modern countries. About 35% of that length is main road and 65% is secondary road. It is the Itiner-e atlas's best reconstruction of the network, not a surveyed total, and most of the lines are conjectured.
Show the numbers
| Secondary roads | 195,693 |
|---|---|
| Main roads | 103,478 |
The whole network
299,171 km of Roman road are mapped in the Itiner-e dataset.
Measured along each mapped line. Because most lines are best guesses, treat the total as an estimate.
20.3 km is the average length of one mapped road segment.
Segments are the pieces the atlas is drawn in, not whole roads.
Main and secondary roads
103,478 km of the network is classed as main road, 35% of the total length.
The atlas marks the larger routes as main and the rest as secondary.
195,693 km is classed as secondary road, 65% of the total length.
5,698 segments are main road.
9,071 segments are secondary road.
One connected network
281,439 km of road join up into a single connected network.
Roads count as joined when their ends meet within a short distance, so small gaps in the mapping do not split the network.
13 separate groups of connected roads make up the whole dataset, the biggest of them holding most of the length.
The smaller groups are stretches that do not connect to the rest of the mapped network.
How many Roman roads were there?
There is no single count, because the Roman road system was a web rather than a list of numbered roads. This dataset splits it into 14,769 mapped segments. Only 39 roads have a well-known name, such as Via Egnatia and Via Hadriana, and together they cover 12,616 km. The rest are recorded without a name.
Segments and named roads
14,769 road segments are mapped in the dataset.
One long road is usually drawn as many segments, so this is not a count of roads.
39 roads carry a well-known name and have their own page on this site.
12,616 km of road belong to the named roads.
A road is named only where the atlas records a name for it.
771 segments belong to the named roads.
323 km is the average length of a named road.
Averages hide a wide spread between the longest and the shortest.
Roads that cross borders
7 named roads run through more than one modern country.
Modern borders did not exist in Roman times; this just shows how far a route reached.
4 modern countries is the most that any named road passes through: Via Egnatia and Via Belgica.
24 Roman places are linked to Via Egnatia, the most of any named road.
Places come from the Pleiades gazetteer and are matched to the ends of road segments.
Which is the longest Roman road?
Via Egnatia is the longest named Roman road in this dataset, at 1,165 km, followed by Via Hadriana (853 km) and Via Claudia Augusta (686 km). The longest in the UK is Ermine Street, at 421 km. Lengths are measured along the mapped line, so they are only as good as the route.
Show the numbers
| Via Egnatia | 1,165 |
|---|---|
| Via Hadriana | 853 |
| Via Claudia Augusta | 686 |
| Via Domitia | 623 |
| Via Appia | 576 |
| Via Popillia (Capua to Rhegium) | 512 |
| Via Postumia | 462 |
| Via Sebaste | 462 |
| Via Nova Traiana | 455 |
| Via Julia Augusta | 422 |
The longest and the shortest
1,165 km is the length of Via Egnatia, the longest named Roman road.
Length is the mapped line, which is mostly conjectured.
853 km is the length of Via Hadriana, the second longest.
686 km is the length of Via Claudia Augusta, the third longest.
421 km is the length of Ermine Street, the longest named Roman road in the United Kingdom.
Roads on the Continent run much longer.
37.5 km is the length of Via Domitiana, the shortest named road.
Length says little about how important a road was.
How sure are historians about the routes?
Not very, and the map says so plainly. Only 2.7% of the road length is classed as certain, 89.8% is conjectured and 7.4% is hypothetical. A conjectured road is known to have existed but its exact course is a best estimate. So the lines show where roads probably ran, not a survey.
Show the numbers
| Conjectured | 268,710 |
|---|---|
| Hypothetical | 22,281 |
| Certain | 8,181 |
Certain, conjectured and hypothetical
8,181 km of road are classed as certain: well documented and mapped closely.
Certain does not mean the road survives, only that its line is well established.
268,710 km are conjectured: a known road whose exact course is less precisely documented.
22,281 km are hypothetical: the route is not pinned down, or the road itself is uncertain.
1,040 segments are certain, out of 14,769 in total.
Named roads
71% of Via Belgica is classed as certain, the highest share of any named road.
Even the best documented road has stretches that are only estimated.
28 of the 39 named roads have no stretch classed as certain.
A famous name does not mean a well-mapped route.
Which countries have the most Roman roads?
France has the most Roman road of any modern country in this dataset, with 42,416 km, followed by Turkey (41,023 km) and Spain (35,054 km). Those three hold 40% of the total. Roads are counted inside today's borders, and 39 countries have some.
Countries
39 modern countries have Roman road in the dataset.
Counted by where the road lies today, not by Roman provinces.
France has the most Roman road: 42,416 km.
Turkey is second, with 41,023 km.
Spain is third, with 35,054 km.
4th is where Italy ranks among countries by length of Roman road, with 20,941 km.
Many roads led to Rome, but most of the network connected other parts of the empire.
The United Kingdom
11,574 km of Roman road are mapped in the United Kingdom, 8th among the countries.
10,124 km of it lies in England.
1,117 km lies in Wales.
344 km lies in Scotland.
Counted inside the modern boundary of Scotland.
North Yorkshire has the most Roman road of any UK county: 560 km.
Counties are the ceremonial counties in the Ordnance Survey boundaries.
Are Roman roads still used today?
In places, yes. For 6 named roads in Great Britain, we compared the Roman line with today's numbered roads. Watling Street follows them most closely: 87.6% of its route lies on a numbered road, mostly the A5. The match is approximate, because the Roman lines are mostly best guesses.
Show the numbers
| Watling Street | 87.6 |
|---|---|
| Fosse Way | 75.1 |
| Ermine Street | 63.3 |
| Stane Street | 59.6 |
| Dere Street | 52.9 |
| Akeman Street | 32.8 |
Modern roads on Roman lines
6 named roads in Great Britain have been checked against today's numbered roads.
Only Great Britain, where open road data is available. Other countries are not checked.
87.6% of Watling Street lies on a numbered road today, the highest share of the roads checked.
A numbered road counts when it runs close to the Roman line and in the same direction.
32.8% of Akeman Street lies on a numbered road, the lowest share of the roads checked.
155 km of Watling Street are followed by the A5, the longest match between a numbered road and a Roman road.
37.3 km is the longest unbroken stretch where the A2 follows Watling Street.
A road is listed only if it follows the Roman line for a long enough distance.
11 different numbered roads follow stretches of Ermine Street, the most of any road checked.
About the data
What is counted
Itiner-e 2024 1.3 is the version of the road atlas used for every figure here, shared under a CC BY 4.0 licence.
The atlas is a living project and later versions may change the numbers.
October 2026 is when these figures were last worked out from the data.
The page is rebuilt whenever the data is refreshed.
What these numbers mean
Most of the lines are best guesses
Only a small share of the mapped length is classed as certain. Treat every total and every length as an estimate of where the roads probably ran, not a measurement of roads you could walk today.
Segments are not roads
The atlas draws the network in short pieces. A single long road is drawn as many segments, and most segments have no name. The number of segments is therefore not the number of Roman roads.
Countries are modern
Roads are counted inside today's borders, which did not exist in Roman times. A country with a lot of Roman road is not necessarily one the Romans cared about most. It may simply be big, or well studied.
A famous name is not a certain route
Many of the best-known roads are mostly conjectured. Where a modern road follows a Roman one, the match is approximate, because the Roman line it is compared with is itself an estimate.
Methodology
The numbers come from Itiner-e (version 2024 1.3), an open atlas of ancient roads. Each road is split into segments, and each segment is classed as certain, conjectured or hypothetical, and as main or secondary road. Lengths are measured along each line on the globe, not on a flat map.
Countries and UK counties come from open boundary lines. A road that crosses a border counts in each place it passes through, so the country figures can add up to more than the total. Modern road matches use Ordnance Survey data for Great Britain only: a numbered road counts as following a Roman road when it runs close to the line and in nearly the same direction.
See data sources and licences for every dataset and how it is used, and named Roman roads and countries and UK counties for the full lists behind these figures.
Cite this page
You are welcome to quote any number on this page. Please credit Roman Roads Map and link to this page, so readers can check the figure and see how it was worked out. Every number has its own link and a Copy citation button.
Need the numbers in a spreadsheet? Download every fact on this page as CSV.
Frequently asked questions
How many Roman roads were there?
Nobody can give one exact number, because the roads formed a connected web rather than a list. The Itiner-e atlas maps 14,769 segments, and 771 of them belong to the 39 roads with a well-known name. All the segments together add up to 299,171 km, and most of that is conjectured.
How long were the Roman roads in total?
The roads in the dataset add up to 299,171 km. Because only 2.7% of that length is classed as certain, the total is the best current estimate and could change as research continues.
Are any Roman roads still in use?
Parts of some are. In Great Britain, Watling Street is the closest match, with 87.6% of its route lying on a numbered road today. Only 6 named roads have been checked, so the figures cover a small part of the network.
Where do these numbers come from?
Every number on this page is worked out by a script from Itiner-e (version 2024 1.3), an open atlas of ancient roads. UK county and nation figures use Ordnance Survey boundaries, and the modern road matches use OS Open Roads. Nothing is typed in by hand. The data sources page lists every dataset and its licence.
Can I use these facts in my article, homework or presentation?
Yes. Quote any number you like and credit Roman Roads Map with a link to this page. Each fact has a Copy citation button that copies the sentence with a link to that exact fact, and the whole list can be downloaded as a CSV file.
How often is this page updated?
The page is rebuilt from the data whenever the road data is refreshed. The date at the top shows when the numbers were last worked out.
Roman Empire facts and statistics → The same kind of numbers for the empire itself: its size, provinces and how it grew.