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Historic roads (or historic trails in the US and Canada) are paths or routes that have historical importance due to their use over a period of time. Examples exist from prehistoric times until the early 20th century. They include ancient trackways, long-lasting roads, important trade routes, and migration trails. Many historic routes, such as the Silk Road, the Amber Road, and the Royal Road of the Persian Empire, covered great distances and their impact on human settlements remain today.
The Post Track, a prehistoric causeway in the valley of the River Brue in the Somerset Levels, England, is one of the oldest known constructed trackways and dates from around 3800 BCE. The world's oldest known paved road was constructed in Egypt some time between 2600 and 2200 BC.
The Roman roads were the most significant road builders of the ancient world. At the peak of the Roman Empire there were more than of roads, of which over were stone-paved. Another empire, that of the Incas of pre-Columbian South America, also built an extensive and advanced transportation system.
Much later historic roads include the Red River Trails between Canada and the US, from the 19th century. Such pioneer trails often made use of ancient routes created by indigenous people.
Prior to the Silk Road an ancient overland route existed through the Eurasian Steppe. Silk and horses were traded as key commodities; secondary trade included furs, weapons, musical instruments, precious stones (turquoise, lapis lazuli, agate, nephrite) and jewels. This route extended for approximately . Trans-Eurasian trade through the Steppe Route precedes the conventional date for the origins of the Silk Road by at least two millennia.
See also the Northern Silk Road, the , Tea Horse Road.
The Shudao (), or the "Road(s) to Shu", is a system of mountain roads linking the Chinese province of Shaanxi with Sichuan (Shu), built and maintained since the 4th century BC. Technical highlights were the , consisting of wooden planks erected on wooden or stone beams slotted into holes cut into the sides of cliffs. The roads join three adjacent basins separated and surrounded by high mountains. Like many ancient road systems, the Shu Roads formed a network of major and minor roads with different roads being used at different historical times. However, a number of roads are commonly identified as the main routes.Li, Zhiqin, Yan Shoucheng & Hu Ji (1986). Ancient records of the Shu Roads. Xi’an, Northwest University Press. (In Chinese).
蜀道話古，李之勤，阎守诚，胡戟著，西安，西北大学出版社，1986
Shu dao hua gu, Li Zhiqin, Yan Shoucheng, Hu Ji zhu, Xi’an, Xibei Daxue Chubanshe, 1986
Kaidō, however, do not include San'yōdō, San'indō, Nankaidō and Saikaidō, which were part of the even more ancient system of Yamato government called Gokishichidō. This was the name for ancient administrative units and the roads within these units, organized in Japan during the Asuka period (AD 538–710), as part of a legal and governmental system borrowed from the Chinese.
Many and railway lines in modern Japan follow the ancient routes and carry the same names. The early roads radiated from the capital at Nara or Kyoto. Later, Edo was the reference, and even today Japan reckons directions and measures distances along its from Nihonbashi in Chūō, Tokyo.
Brick-paved streets appeared in India as early as 3000 BC.Lay, Maxwell G (1992). Ways of the World: A History of the World's Roads and of the Vehicles that Used Them. Rutgers University Press.
The Amber Road was an ancient trade route for the transfer of amber from coastal areas of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Graciela Gestoso Singer, "Amber in the Ancient Near East", i-Medjat No. 2 (December 2008). Papyrus Electronique des Ankou. Prehistoric between Northern and Southern Europe were defined by the amber trade. As an important commodity, sometimes dubbed "the gold of the north", amber was transported overland by way of the Vistula and Dnieper River rivers to the Mediterranean area from at least the 16th century BC. J. M. de Navarro, "Prehistoric Routes between Northern Europe and Italy Defined by the Amber Trade", The Geographical Journal, Vol. 66, No. 6 (December 1925), pp. 481–503. Anthony F. Harding, "Reformation and Barbarism in Europe, 1300–600 BC", in Barry W. Cunliffe, ed., Oxford Illustrated History of Prehistoric Europe, Oxford, Oxford U. Press, 2001. The breast ornament of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen (ca. 1333–1324 BC) contains large Baltic amber beads.Reeves, C.N. The Complete Tutankhamun: the king, the tomb, the Royal Treasure. London, Thames & Hudson, 1990.Serpico, M. and White, R. "Resins, amber and bitumen". in P.T. Nicholson – I. Shaw (ed.). Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, Part. II, Chapter 18, 430–75: 451–54). Cited, Gestoso Singer.Hood, S., "Amber in Egypt", in C. W. Beck & J. Bouzek (ed.) Amber in Archaeology (Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Amber in Archaeology, Liblice 1990, Institute of Archaeology): 230–35. Prague: Czech Academy of Sciences. The quantity of amber in the Royal Tomb of Qatna, Syria, is unparalleled for known second millennium BC sites in the Levant and the Ancient Near East. Anna J. Mukherjee, et al., "The Qatna lion: scientific confirmation of Baltic amber in late Bronze Age Syria" Antiquity 82 (2008), pp. 49–59. From the Black Sea, trade could continue to Asia along the Silk Road.
Hærvejen (Danish, meaning "the army road") ran from Viborg, Denmark through Flensburg (in the present northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein) to Hamburg. The road runs more or less along the drainage divide of the Jutland Peninsula, known as the Jyske Højderyg (Jutland Ridge), similar to the ridgeways in England. By using this route rivers were avoided, or fords used, close to the rivers sources. Over time by this route was improved with paved fords, embankments and bridges. Concentrations of mounds, defensive ditches, settlements and other historic landmarks can be found along the road and sections of it can be traced back to 4000 BC. Drunter oder drüber: Elbquerungen gestern und heute (Brochure on the exhibition in Staatsarchiv Hamburg between 30 October till 20 December 2002 on occasion of the opening of the 4th bore of the Elbe Tunnel), Joachim W. Frank (ed.), Hamburg: Staatsarchiv Hamburg / Amt für Geoinformation und Vermessung, 2002, p. 8.
At the peak of Rome's development, no fewer than 29 great military highways radiated from the capital, and the late Empire's 113 provinces were interconnected by 372 great roads.Bailey, L. H., and Wilhelm Miller. Cyclopedia of American Horticulture, Comprising Suggestions for Cultivation of Horticultural Plants, Descriptions of the Species of Fruits, Vegetables, Flowers, and Ornamental Plants Sold in the United States and Canada, Together with Geographical and Biographical Sketches. New York etc.: The Macmillan Co, 1900. Page 320. (2025). 9781445649702, Amberley Publishing. ISBN 9781445649702 The whole comprised more than of roads, of which over were stone-paved. In Gaul alone, no less than of roadways are said to have been improved, and in Britain at least . The courses (and sometimes the surfaces) of many Roman roads survived for millennia; some are overlaid by modern roads.
The Old Salt Route or Alte Salzstraße of the Hanseatic League was a medieval trade route in northern Germany that transported salt from Lüneburg to Lübeck.
The Rennsteig is a ridgeway and an historical boundary path in the Thuringian Forest, Thuringian Highland and Franconian Forest in Central Germany. It was a connecting road between small independent states in Thuringia. The route crosses the Thuringian Forest and the slate mountains of Thuringia and Franconian Forest, stretching from Hörschel at the river Werra (near Eisenach) to Blankenstein at the river Saale. It is part of the European long-distance paths network.
The Via Regia (king's road) is a medieval road that ran from Frankfurt to Görlitz in Lower Silesia, in what is today south-west Poland. See also the Via Regia Lusatiae Superioris.
An important medieval German pilgrim route was the French Way]] (because the most important town along the way is Toulouse, France). This is one of the four medieval pilgrim routes described by Aimery Picaud in his 12th-century Pilgrim's Guide, used by pilgrims from southern and eastern Europe on the Way of St James to Santiago de Compostela. See also the Palatine Ways of St. James.
Built somewhat later, the Wittmoor Bog Trackways are two historic trackways discovered in Wittmoor in northern Hamburg. The trackways date to the 4th and 7th century AD, both linked the eastern and western shores of the formerly inaccessible, swampy bog. A part of the older trackway No. II dating to the period of the Roman Empire is on display at the permanent exhibition of the Archaeological Museum Hamburg in Harburg, Hamburg.Topic Mobility, Show case no. 80. (2025). 9783931429249 ISBN 9783931429249
Hellweg was the official and common name given to main travelling routes medieval trade route through Germany. Their breadth was decreed as an unimpeded passageway a lance's width, about three metres, which the landholders through which the Hellweg passed were required to maintain.John W. Bernhardt, Itinerant Kingship and Royal Monasteries in Early Medieval Germany, c.936-1075 (2002), introduces the medieval use of the Hellweg and offers a bibliography.
The Kulmer Steig is a byword for transport links from the Elbe valley over the eastern part of the Eastern Ore Mountains to Bohemian italic=no (). Archaeological finds suggest that this route existed in the Bronze Age () and the Iron Age (750 BC – early AD) and even in the Neolithic (Stone Age )Simon, Klaus und Hauswald, Knut: Der Kulmer Steig vor dem Mittelalter. Zu den ältesten sächsisch-böhmischen Verkehrswegen über das Osterzgebirge. In: Arbeits- und Forschungsberichte zur sächsischen Bodendenkmalpflege. Hrsg.: Landesamt für Archäologie Sachsen mit Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte, Dresden. Bd. 37/1995, Theis, Stuttgart, S. 9–98 (früher im Deutschen Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin. Aufnahme nach Bd. 35/1992) , ISSN 0402-7817; M. Ruttkowski: Altstraßen im Erzgebirge; Archäologische Denkmalinventarisation Böhmische Steige. in: Arbeits- und Forschungsberichte zur sächsischen Bodendenkmalpflege, Band 44, 2002
Tracks provided links between farmsteads and fields, other farmsteads, and neighbouring long barrow tombs. They also joined the separate localities to the camp meeting places and cross-country flint roads. Others were more likely to have been processional ways, such as the one leading to the gigantic temple at Avebury in Wiltshire. On British hills, the line of tracks often run a little below the actual crest of a ridge, possibly to afford some shelter from the wind or to avoid travellers presenting themselves to marauders as a target on the skyline.West, Graham. The Technical Development of Roads in Britain, Ashgate, 2000.
Examples include the Harrow Way and the Pilgrims' Way, running along the North Downs in southern England. The Harrow Way (also spelled as "Harroway") is another name for the "Old Way", an ancient trackway in the south of England, dated by archaeological finds to 600–450 BC, but probably in existence since the Stone Age. The "Old Way" ran from Seaton in Devon to Dover, Kent. Later the eastern part of the Harrow Way become known as the Pilgrims Way, following the canonisation of and the establishment of a shrine in Canterbury, Kent. This pilgrimage route ran from Winchester in Hampshire, via Farnham in Surrey, to Canterbury. The western section of the Harrow Way ends in Farnham, the eastern in Dover.
The Ridgeway similarly keeps to high ground and for at least 5,000 years travellers have used it. The Ridgeway provided a reliable trading route running along Downland from the Dorset coast to the Wash in Norfolk. The high dry ground made travel easy and provided a measure of protection by giving traders a commanding view, warning against potential attacks. The Icknield Way follows the chalk escarpment that includes the Berkshire Downs and Chiltern Hills, in southern and eastern England, from Norfolk to Wiltshire. Other examples of historic roads in England include the Mariners' Way in Devon, and the Long Causeway – a Middle Ages packhorse route that ran from Sheffield to Hathersage. The Mariners' Way was created in the eighteenth century (or earlier) by sailors who, in travelling across Devon between the ports of Bideford and Dartmouth, linked existing lanes, tracks and footpaths to form a direct route.
The Via Pythia (or Pythian road) was the route to Delphi. It was revered throughout the Ancient Greek world as the site of the Omphalos stone (the centre of the earth and universe).
The Sacred Way (, Hierá Hodós), in ancient Greece, was the road from Athens to Eleusis. It was so called because it was the route taken by a procession celebrating the Eleusinian Mysteries. The procession to Eleusis began at the Sacred Gate in the Kerameikos (the Athenian cemetery) on the 19th Attic calendar. In the present day, the road from central Athens to Aegaleo and Chaidari (the old route to Eleusis) is called after the ancient road.
Ireland's prehistoric roads were minimally developed, but oak-plank pathways covered many bog areas, and five great 'ways' () converged at the Hill of Tara. An ancient avenue or trackway in Ireland is located at Rathcroghan Mound and the surrounding earthworks within a 370m circular enclosure.
The Esker Riada, a series of glacial eskers formed at the end of the last Ice Age, formed an elevated pathway from east to west, connecting Galway to Dublin.
The construction of the road was decreed by the Tsar two months after the conclusion of the Treaty of Nerchinsk, on 22 November 1689, but it did not start until 1730 and was not finished until the mid-19th century. Previously, Siberian transport had been mostly by river via Siberian River Routes. First Russian settlers arrived in Siberia by the Cherdyn Route which was superseded by the Babinov Road in the late 1590s. The town of Verkhoturye in the Urals was the most eastern point of the Babinov Road.
The much longer Siberian route started in Moscow as the Vladimir Highway (a medieval road) and passed through Murom, Kozmodemyansk, Kazan, Perm, Kungur, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Tobolsk, Tara, Kainsk, Tomsk, Yeniseysk and Irkutsk. After crossing Lake Baikal the road split near Verkhneudinsk. One branch continued east to Nerchinsk while the other went south to the border post of Kyakhta where it linked to camel caravans that crossed Mongolia to a Great Wall gate at Zhangjiakou.
In the early 19th century, the route was moved to the south. From Tyumen the road proceeded through Yalutorovsk, Ishim, Omsk, Tomsk, Achinsk and Krasnoyarsk before rejoining the older route at Irkutsk. It remained a vital artery connecting Siberia with Moscow and Europe until the last decades of the 19th century, when it was superseded by the Trans-Siberian Railway (built 1891–1916), and the Amur Cart Road (built 1898–1909). The contemporary equivalent is the Trans-Siberian Highway.
The Royal Road was an ancient highway reorganized and rebuilt by the Persian Empire king Darius the Great (Darius I) of the first (Achaemenid) Persian Empire in the 5th century BCE. The Persian Royal Road System, 1994. Darius built the road to facilitate rapid communication throughout his very large empire from Susa, Syria to Sardis, Turkey.Fox, Alexander the Great, 1973:96.
However, Frank G. Roe disputes this theory – and its wider application – in "The 'Wild Animal Path' Origin of Ancient Roads". Antiquity; Gloucester, Vol. 3, Jan 1, 1929: 299.
Some suggest that the portage routes of North American indigenous peoples followed "the game trails the animals had made around rough water. ... And as centuries passed, well-trodden paths were made, winding among the rocks, and, by the easiest of grades, over or around hills". 02-003: "The Prehistoric Trails" by Dorthea Calverley. The South Peace Historical Society, Dawson Creek, B.C., Canada
In the American Old West, the Oregon Trail was a 19th-century American pioneer route from Illinois to Oregon, much of which was also used by the Mormon Trail and California Trail. The Santa Fe Trail was a major commercial and military artery from Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico. In modern times, the Lincoln Highway (dedicated 1913) was the first road for the automobile across the United States of America, spanning 3389 miles coast-to-coast from New York City to San Francisco.
The Mojave Road (also known as Mohave Trail) was a historical footpath and pack trail used by pre-contact desert-dwelling indigenous people that was later followed by Spanish missionaries, explorers, colonizers and settlers. Its course ran across the Mojave Desert between watering holes approximately apart.DG Casebier (2025). 9780914224372, Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association. ISBN 9780914224372
The Plank Road Boom was an economic boom that happened in the United States. Largely in the Eastern United States and New York, the boom lasted from 1844 to the mid 1850s. In about 10 years, over of plank road were built in New York aloneenough road to go from Manhattan to California, and more than of plank road were built countrywide.
Travellers began to use the trails by the 1820s, with the heaviest use from the 1840s to the early 1870s, when they were superseded by railways. Until then, these cartways provided the most efficient means of transportation between the isolated Red River Colony and the outside world. They gave the Selkirk colonists and their neighbours, the Métis people, an outlet for their furs and a source of supplies other than the Hudson's Bay Company, which was unable to enforce its monopoly in the face of the competition that used the trails.
In Peru part of the Inca road system crossed the Andes to connect areas of the Inca Empire.
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