Roman roads in Algeria
Roman Africa was a grain province, and its roads were built to move it. The network of Numidia and Mauretania Caesariensis linked the coastal ports to the inland cities of the high plains, and to the limes, the frontier road along the desert edge that watched the routes in from the Sahara. The remains at Timgad and Djemila stand in some of the best preserved Roman townscapes anywhere.
What to see
Timgad is the place to understand what these roads were for. Founded by Trajan around AD 100 as a colony for veterans, it was laid out as a near-perfect grid on the standard military plan, and because it was abandoned rather than built over, that grid survives complete: the decumanus, the forum, the library, the arch of Trajan and a theatre for 3,500 people, all sitting where the surveyors put them.
- Mapped segments
- 767
- Surveyed length
- 16,220 km
Measured from the Itiner-e survey. Segments by certainty of line: conjectured 691, hypothetical 49, certain 27. A conjectured line is one inferred from evidence either side of it, not a road whose existence is doubted.
What kind of roads
- Secondary Road 583 segments
- Main Road 184 segments