When do the first roads date?

The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) in its Dictionary of the Spanish Language defines road as «Public, wide and spacious, paved and ready for the transit of vehicles.»

According to the definition of Wikipedia, a highway is a means of transport of domain and public use, designed and built primarily for the circulation of vehicles.

It is important to highlight the differentiating nuance of «… for the transit of vehicles» and «… for the circulation of vehicles», of the road concept. Road is thus distinguished from a simple road because roads are specially designed for the circulation of transport vehicles.

And today we want to talk about the first roads. The roads were one of the first signs of the development of the most advanced civilizations. And who seems to have been the first civilization to start building roads? … the Mesopotamians.

In the south of Mesopotamia, located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in the city of Ur, have been found the first paved streets dating from 4,000-3,500 BC.

But undoubtedly one of the greatest drivers of road evolution was the Roman civilization. That at the peak of its predominance over other cultures came to have a road system of almost 100,000 km.