The well-known saying “all roads lead to Rome” seems to be true--at least, that’s what Moovel Lab, a team from Stuttgart dedicated to urban mobility research, points out. Titled "Roads to Rome," the project has mapped out over-land routes across Europe that converge to the city.

From a grid of 26,503,452 square kilometers covering all of Europe, the researchers defined 486,713 starting points that were superimposed on the continent's street map. Then an algorithm was developed for the project that calculated the shortest route between each of the points and the Italian capital.

The resulting cartography reveals a route map that, in fact, leads to Rome. The thicker lines represent the most used routes and are the roads where the smaller routes converge.

In its glory days, the Roman Empire was responsible for creating an extensive network of thoroughfares throughout the European continent, from Britain to Turkey, interconnecting its 113 provinces by means of 373 routes that were more than 80 thousand kilometers long. Today, some of Europe's major highways exist on ancient Roman roads.

Access the interactive map here.

News via: Nexo and Roads to Rome.