It’s uncommon to find the world’s oldest roads: places wherever you tin virtually measurement into the footprints of radical who lived thousands of years ago.

While astir oldest roads person been buried by modern cities oregon eroded with time, immoderate inactive endure: winding crossed landscapes and carrying the stories of past civilizations.

Below are 5 of the oldest and astir singular roads that stay successful usage today.

The Ridgeway (~3000 BC)

Dating backmost astir 5,000 years, The Ridgeway successful Oxfordshire, England, is considered the oldest continuously utilized roadworthy successful Britain, and perchance the world. This prehistoric way meanders crossed chalk downs, weaving done rolling hills and past neolithic monuments. The way is said to person inspired J.R.R. Tolkien erstwhile helium created the landscapes of The Lord of the Rings.

Stretching for 87 miles, The Ridgeway reveals countless traces of quality history, from the mysterious chromatic ellipse astatine Avebury to the Bronze Age Uffington White Horse carved into a chalk hillside. Over time, it served galore purposes: a antiaircraft enactment successful the Iron Age, a Saxon subject route, and adjacent a medieval livestock trail. Today, it is simply a National Trail unfastened to walkers and hikers, preserving its relation arsenic a surviving nexus to the past.

The King’s Highway (8th Century BC)

The King’s Highway is truthful past that it is adjacent mentioned successful the Bible. In the Book of Numbers, Moses appeals to the king of Edom for harmless transition on this way done what is present Jordan. Known successful Arabic arsenic Darb ar-Raseef (“the paved road”), it erstwhile formed a large commercialized nexus betwixt Egypt and the Fertile Crescent.

By the archetypal period A.D., the Roman emperor Trajan paved the roadworthy and renamed it Via Nova Traiana, making it suitable for carts and caravans. For centuries, it carried pilgrims—both Christian and Muslim—on their journeys to beatified sites and Mecca. Today, it survives arsenic Jordan’s Highway 35, moving from Amman to Aqaba, inactive echoing with the footsteps of traders, travelers, and worshippers from millennia past.

The Grand Trunk Road (4th Century BC)

Few roads are arsenic legendary arsenic the Grand Trunk Road, which stretches much than 2,200 miles from Afghanistan to Bangladesh, cutting crossed Pakistan and India. Originating arsenic the Uttarapath (“northern route”) successful the 4th period B.C., it formed portion of the Silk Road, carrying goods and ideas crossed South Asia.

In the 16th century, Emperor Sher Shah Suri transformed the route, widening it, planting shadiness trees, and gathering roadside remainder houses (sarais) to marque journeys safer and much comfortable. Beyond facilitating commercialized successful spices and textiles, the roadworthy besides helped dispersed religions similar Buddhism and Islam crossed the subcontinent. Later, the British Empire renamed it the Grand Trunk Road, utilizing it arsenic a cardinal artery of assemblage administration. Today, it remains 1 of South Asia’s busiest highways, a surviving testament to thousands of years of question and exchange.

The Appian Way (312 BC)

The Romans called the Appian Way (Via Appia Antica) the regina viarum—the “queen of each roads.” Built successful 312 B.C. by Appius Claudius Caecus, it began arsenic a subject proviso roadworthy stretching from Rome toward confederate Italy. Over time, it extended astir 400 miles to Brindisi, wherever it connected the empire to commercialized with Greece, Egypt, and Asia Minor.

Ingeniously engineered with volcanic chromatic cobbles and gravel, the Appian Way was designed for durability and efficiency. It featured mile markers, fountains, and remainder stops and dissimilar galore aboriginal roads, it charged nary tolls. Today, visitors to Rome tin locomotion the archetypal 10 miles of the Appian Way successful the Parco Appia Antica, marveling astatine the craftsmanship of Roman engineers whose enactment has outlasted empires.

The Inca Road System (15th Century)

In South America, the Inca Empire’s spot laic successful its singular roadworthy network—the Qhapaq Ñan—which stret...