Maps of Rome

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The Topography of Rome:   The Tiber River and the original 7 hills upon which Rome was built.

The Walls of Rome: The walls of the original city, Roma Quadrata, the Severan walls (about 500 BCE) and the Aurelian walls (about 300 CE); with two overlays of the names of the Severan and Aurelian gates.

Ancient City: This map is colored  realistically with the buildings in tones of gray, the water features blue, walls dark brown, streets tan and hills brown.  Several detail maps are available from this page.

The Ancient City color coded by Type of building: this map has the buildings colored by type showing temples, sports arenas, baths, the fora, theaters, and other buildings.   Sub pages isolate each type of building and give the names of the principle ones.

Plans of Buildings:  a number of buildings have detailed plans and, in some cases, elevations or other architectural details available.  In this map these sites are indicated in red against a general gray map background.

The Modern City of Rome: several maps of the modern city of Rome are:

Overlays of Modern and Ancient Rome:

There are two maps of the city center. The first shows ancient Rome with the modern streets as a background, the second reverses this to show modern Rome with the ancient buildings as a light background.

Comparisions of Buildings and Sites:

A number of drawings are available that compare various buildings and sites..

Elevations and detailed plans of certain buildings:  

More information about the plans and drawings: Caveats about accuracy, notes on sources, CAD source drawings.

The source documents have been drawn with CAD programs. They can be scaled to any size and retain their true dimensions. CAD also permits almost unlimited detail. The source documents may be made available to interested parties upon request.

Caution: It is necessary to inject a cautionary note about the street map illustrated here. In the preparation of this map I consulted dozens of maps of Rome and tried to reconcile them with each other. It proved impossible. Maps do not even agree on the shapes of blocks or even on whether a given area is best shown as divided into one or two or more separate blocks. The maps do not agree on scale and proportions at either large or small scale. For example, if one carefully measures the legs of a triangle formed by the center of the Colosseum, the center of Hadrian's tomb and the corner of the Castra Praetoria (three notable landmarks) one finds that the relative lengths of the legs and the angles differ from one map to another.

I believe there are multiple reasons for these discrpencies. In the first place, many maps, especially "tourist" maps, are not necessarily based on the most reliable data and may reflect the old or inaccurately drawnn earlier maps that were used as the source. Another cause of the differences is that different projections of the curved surface of the earth onto a flat map will cause distortions. And, finally, a major source of discrpency is the character of Rome herself. Any visitor knows that what passes for a "street" in Rome may be called an alley or passageway in an American city. Some maps show these narrow passages as streets, dividing the space into separate "blocks," other ignore them.

Ancient maps of Rome vary even more than do modern ones. Some ancient maps, reprinted in current books, are based on old plans and drawings that reflect the inaccurate information of their times. Many ancient sites are not known with precision. The interpretation of ruins changes as the archaeologists learn more. All of these factors contribute to disagreements between maps.

Whenever possible I used maps or plans that showed the greatest detail and the largest scale. The final map is a compromise between detailed building plans and area maps and an overall map. Building plans were used to ensure accurate details, but an overall map of the city was necessary to provide a framework within which the individual elements could be sited. Building plans were never changed to fit the larger map. In some cases the precise location of a building or group of buildings may have been adjusted to fit within the overall city map.

The maps shown here are a "best fit" between ancient and modern maps but should not be interpreted as definitive or as precisely accurate.

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