Roman roads in Spain
Rome took its first Spanish provinces in 197 BC, after Sicily and Sardinia but well before Gaul, and the road network reflects two centuries of conquest. The Via Augusta ran nearly fifteen hundred kilometres from the Pyrenees to Cadiz, the longest road in Hispania and arguably a system rather than a single route. Inland, the road the Spanish call the Vía de la Plata ran north from Seville to Astorga, serving the gold mines of the north-west that made Hispania the richest mining province Rome ever held.
What to see
The most complete thing to see is the bridge at Alcántara over the Tagus, built in AD 106 under Trajan and still standing, with its dedicatory arch and the inscription of its architect Caius Julius Lacer. Mérida keeps a Roman bridge of sixty arches, a theatre and an aqueduct; the gold workings at Las Médulas, where whole hillsides were washed away by water brought in by aqueduct, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and among the most extraordinary industrial landscapes Rome left anywhere.
- Mapped segments
- 1,471
- Surveyed length
- 35,290 km
Measured from the Itiner-e survey. Segments by certainty of line: conjectured 1,454, certain 15, hypothetical 2. 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 1,070 segments
- Main Road 401 segments