Roman Britain: settlements and rivers.
Explore the relationship between Roman settlements, waterways and roads.
Choose a settlement or click a red marker. Switch roads and rivers on or off to compare the patterns.
Loading settlement and river data…
Select a settlement to see its original data.
What can we learn?
- Which settlements appear close to rivers?
- How do roads connect the settlements?
- What other evidence would help explain why a settlement developed here?
The blue lines are a modern statutory main-river dataset, not a reconstruction of Roman waterways. It does not include every river, and channels can change over time. Distances are preserved from the original resource; the method used to calculate them has not been supplied. Proximity alone does not establish why a settlement was founded.
Sources and map details
Settlements, recorded distances and Roman roads are retained from your original QGIS export. The original sources for those layers have not yet been identified. The river layer is the supplied Statutory Main River Map, simplified for screen display.
Roman roads are restricted to the Britain region (7°W–2°E, 49.9°N–59°N); the rest of the Europe-wide dataset is excluded. The modern basemap uses © OpenStreetMap contributors data and standard OpenStreetMap tiles. Basemap tiles require an internet connection.
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