This map depicts the Roman Empire in the year 883 ab Urbe condita (AD 130). There are 7,891 settlements represented here both within the borders of the empire and beyond.
The project is built with OpenLayers v8 and utilizes multiple GeoJSON layers. The base map, including coastlines and provincial boundaries, is derived primarily from the Ancient World Mapping Center. Numerous geometric errors in the original data were corrected, and several provincial borders were adjusted to align with relevant geographic features. Every settlement is linked to the Pleiades gazetteer and, with few exceptions, to both the Barrington Atlas and the Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire.
This project has two primary objectives. First, to present an interactive map of the Roman Empire as it existed at the end of AD 130—coinciding with the foundation of Antinoopolis—using modern web technologies. Second, to create a unified reference point that connects disparate scholarly databases of ancient Roman settlements by aggregating their identifiers and cross-references in a single, accessible location. This facilitates interdisciplinary research and provides direct pathways for further exploration. The following table details the key resources linked within the application:
Ancient World Mapping Center (UNC-Chapel Hill)
https://awmc.unc.edu/
Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations (Harvard)
https://darmc.harvard.edu/
Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire (University of Gothenburg)
http://imperium.ahlfeldt.se/
Orbis (Stanford)
https://orbis.stanford.edu/
Pleiades
https://pleiades.stoa.org/
The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/
Tabula Peutingeriana (Cambridge)
https://www.cambridge.org/us/talbert/talbertdatabase/prm.html
ToposText
https://topostext.org/the-places
Trismegistos
https://www.trismegistos.org/geo/
Urban Geography of the Roman World (Hanson 2016, Oxford)
https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f7f02498-4ae1-4ff0-81f6-aad909f041b1
Vici.org
https://vici.org
If any copyright has been inadvertently infringed or attribution improperly given, please accept my apologies for the oversight and contact me to rectify the matter.
This is a non-commercial project developed as a personal endeavor. While it does not claim to be a scholarly work, every effort has been made to ensure accuracy. I welcome constructive criticism and suggestions regarding both the content and the technical implementation. Feedback may be sent to [email protected].
Known Issues & Limitations
This project is an ongoing effort. The following limitations and areas for future improvement are currently known:
-
Mobile Responsiveness: The user interface is not yet fully optimized for small screens and mobile devices. The sidebar and map controls may not provide an ideal experience on smartphones.
-
Cartographic Base Layer: The current map tile set is inherited from older projects. A planned update aims to migrate to a more modern and accurate source, such as the CAWM Tile Server.
-
Road Network Geometry: The road layer contains geometric inaccuracies and stylistic inconsistencies inherited from legacy data sources. Future work will focus on correcting these artifacts.
Version 1.0. © 2023–2025 Diasito.
Code, data, and cartographic materials are licensed under the 2-Clause BSD License.