Urban planning in ancient Rome

Ancient Rome explained

Ancient Rome left a high water mark on ancient civilization with its pragmatism and administrative prowess, dominating through its efficient military, engineering, and administration. At least 50 million people—a quarter of the world population—inhabited the empire, covering 5 million square miles at its height.

The Greek city of Alexandria in Egypt helped form the template for modern cities

It was designed by Dinocrates, who studied under Hippodamus, the father of urban planning. Hippodamus preached that urban planning should take into account function, culture, and politics. Dinocrates' design of Alexandria meant applying Hippodamus' teachings on a scale never before attempted.

Visualize ancient Rome in 3D with this aerial view

Researchers have compiled meticulous representations of ancient Rome in this video game-like depiction of the Eternal City from the air. For eight minutes, viewers can take in what Rome looked like two millennia ago, from the terracotta-topped homes to the Forum and Colosseum.

Explore the system of ancient Roman roads with this interactive

The Itiner-e map includes unpaved secondary roads that connected farms and towns to the empire's primary routes. Explore routes, view three-dimensional elevation, and compare the old roads to contemporary ones with this sprawling interactive project.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

How ancient Romans invested and worked

The first stock exchange didn't open for business until the early 1600s, but that didn't stop the Ancient Romans from working and investing their money centuries before. While Romans are better known for their political inventions than their economic ones, understanding how they viewed money can help paint a better picture of the Roman mindset that created systems like democracy. Read this article to learn more.

A reading of ancient Rome's best graffiti

Graffiti has been surprisingly common throughout history, and even the grandeur of ancient Rome's walls wasn't spared. This clever and funny video reads through some of the more notable messages relayed via graffiti in ancient Rome, from tidbits of wisdom like "A small problem gets larger if you ignore it" to more unsavory observations of lovers, friends, and enemies.

Why are ancient ruins underground?

When cities fall into disrepair, it's often easier to flatten what you can and build on top. This is why modern archaeologists frequently discover ruins underground, revealing generational layers of cities rebuilt over time. This video explores major examples of this principle, from ancient Troy to even modern Seattle.

The Etruscans laid the foundations for Roman civilization

When we put aside the myths and legends about Rome's founding, one group takes center stage: the Etruscans. This now-vanished, Greek-like culture laid the foundations of Rome's alphabet, art, and more. Etruscan culture dominated northern Italy in the centuries before the Roman Republic.

Wildlife use Rome's sprawling archaeological sites as urban havens

The Italian capital features some of the world's most famous monuments as the inheritor of ancient Rome's grandeur. This photo essay explores the city's vibrant collection of wildlife, including long-concealed native crabs, peregrine falcons, and the beaver-like nutria.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

The 12 tables: Rome's attempt to fairly enforce the law

It's unclear exactly why ancient Romans drafted the Laws of the Twelve Tables in the mid-400s BCE, but the result was a collection of precisely worded, written laws that could be made known to everyone. This article explores the history and importance of these 12 bronze tables, which were an attempt to make the law equally applicable to all and were destroyed when Rome was attacked in 390 BCE.

Smart cities have been more successful when upgrading existing infrastructure

Building urban landscapes with smart technologies from scratch has sometimes produced futuristic-looking yet sterile environments that struggle to attract residents and justify high costs. Enhancing existing areas while retaining their historical and cultural touchstones has proven more appealing in many cities.

The Maya built their cities with advanced engineering

Maya cities featured pyramids, palaces, causeways, ball courts, and water-management systems that were engineered to support large populations—often tens of thousands—without the use of metal tools, draft animals, or wheeled transport.

The high-tech mechanisms of the Roman Colosseum

The Roman Colosseum is one of the most iconic amphitheaters in the world and still partially stands today. Aside from its sheer size, the arena was equipped with some of the most high-tech engineering from the classical world, including sophisticated lifts, a huge retractable awning, and an underground network of tunnels, elevators, and trapdoors.

Synchronized swimming dates back to Ancient Rome

Known for gruesome gladiatorial contests, ancient Rome's aquatic spectacles may have been even more over-the-top. This article dives into the art of synchronized swimming in ancient Rome. Lakes were dug and amphitheaters flooded to provide space for aquatic reenactments of naval battles and artistic performances. Swimmers playing the role of water nymphs would create elaborate shapes, including ships with billowing sails.

Ancient Rome had an early version of macaroni and cheese

Called placenta (with a hard "c"), the holiday dish consisted of sheets of rolled-out dough layered with cheese. It is the first recipe documenting the combination of the two elements. While there is debate about whether the dough can be called pasta because it's not boiled, many scholars view the dish as a proto-lasagna.

The Ancient Chinese harnessed solar power for heating and cooling 6,000 years ago

Neolithic Chinese homes faced south for winter sun warmth, while overhangs shielded them from high summer sun. These efforts also influenced urban planning, with cities aligning streets east-west for optimal solar exposure.

Mapping early New York

Want to see how Wall Street (and New York City as a whole) has changed over time? Use this timeline and map to see Manhattan today overlaid with the precise boundaries of early land grants to the Dutch in the 1600s. Scroll through the progress of city building through the first century of European settlement there.

When exactly did Mount Vesuvius erupt in ancient Rome?

Historians used to point to the summer of 79 CE when talking about the volcano that destroyed part of ancient Rome, claiming it occurred August 24, per the sole eyewitness account. This version of Pliny the Younger's letters survived via medieval manuscripts, and other versions don't mention a date at all or give a different one: October 24. This article explores new evidence that possibly shifts the deadly disaster to that fall.

The National Mall once had canals and rail lines

In the 1800s, the National Mall looked nothing like it does today. Canals, rail lines, markets, and industrial uses crisscrossed the Mall before later redesigns cleared it into a unified civic landscape.

HH Richardson developed the Romanesque architectural style

The Richardsonian Romanesque style, which the architect developed during the 19th century, blended the Roman and Renaissance arches found in France with the pointed arches of Victorian Gothic. Below is a fountain designed by Richardson honoring Detroit's 16th governor.

The Royal Game of Ur, which dates back as far as 2600 BCE, is believed to be one of the oldest board games in the world.

Local governments coordinate across jurisdictions through regional councils and planning bodies

Many local governments are part of Councils of Governments or Metropolitan Planning Organizations—regional entities that coordinate transportation, land use, and other shared priorities across city and county boundaries. Federal law mandates their establishment in any metro area with a population over 50,000.

Four astronomical discoveries from ancient Greece

Modern astronomy relies on making discoveries without being present on the planets, stars, galaxies, and other objects studied. Imagine the difficulty the ancient Greeks had studying them without computers and telescopes. Yet somehow they calculated precise measurements of planetary distances, sizes, and more. Read this page to learn more about early triumphs in astronomical science.

The fascinating urban planning experiment that birthed Brazil's capital city

In 1960, the country moved its capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília, a city in the middle of the country built from scratch in just four years.

Stonehenge was part of a much larger prehistoric landscape

Long before Stonehenge was built, the Salisbury Plain was already dotted with ceremonial sites, burial mounds, and large-scale earthworks. These landscape maps reveal a densely inhabited region shaped by sophisticated prehistoric communities with ambitious public projects.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

Planarian flatworms are small, aquatic worms with exceptional regenerative capabilities. When cut, the worms can regenerate multiple bodies in a matter of weeks.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

The United States is one of only around two dozen countries with a fully federal system of government, in which power is divided between national and state governments.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in terms of casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.