Provinces · Atlas of Roman Provinces

The lands of the empire

204 provinces and kingdoms, from Britain to Mesopotamia: their peoples, cities, government and fate.

About this compendium

Republic · Principate · Late Empire · Eastern Roman Continuity

Rome’s provinces were inhabited societies before they were coloured territories on a map. Their histories include the peoples and kingdoms that preceded conquest, the circumstances of annexation, the work of government, the movement of armies and merchants, the organization of land and labour, religious change, urban life, rebellion, and the emergence of new political orders.

This atlas follows those histories from the first overseas acquisitions through the transformations of late antiquity. The principal dossiers trace large provincial histories in depth. The later provincial profiles give separate identities to the smaller jurisdictions created by subdivision. Further dossiers distinguish Republican commands, temporary arrangements, sixth-century reforms, and restored imperial territories.

Dates use BCE and CE; c. indicates an approximation. A conquest date, the appointment of a governor, a fiscal reform, a subdivision, and the loss of effective control can be different events. Modern place names are locators, not equivalents for ancient boundaries. Where a capital, date, or territorial identification remains uncertain, that uncertainty is part of the historical description.

City gazetteers identify settlements associated with each regional history across time. Their placement does not assert that every settlement held the same civic status or belonged to the same province in every century. In the eastern campaign districts, inclusion can indicate Roman military activity rather than settled provincial government.

Maps depict particular periods or successive layers of change. Campaign arrows summarize movements, and schematic boundaries provide orientation; neither should be read as proof of continuous occupation or surveyed administrative limits. Each caption identifies the historical setting needed to read the plate.

Also: Figures · Wars · Legions · The guides ↓

Italia and the central Mediterranean 4

The Italian peninsula was the political centre from which Rome’s provincial system expanded. The islands surrounding it became essential to food supply and maritime movement, while northern Italy passed from contested command to incorporation within Italy itself.

Hispania 4

Iberia’s provincial history unfolded across Mediterranean cities, southern river valleys, central plateaus, Atlantic districts, and northern mountains. The distinction between a military acquisition and a stable jurisdiction is especially important in a conquest extending over two centuries.

Hispania: historical provincial geography — Hispania around 125 CE: the principal imperial provinces, cities, roads, and judicial districts.

Gaul and the Rhine 7

Gaul and the Rhine joined old civic territories, new Roman towns, Mediterranean connections, Atlantic and Channel routes, and heavily defended frontier sectors. The same region could be a productive civilian province, an army-supply hinterland, and a theatre of imperial civil war.

Gaul and the Rhine: historical provincial geography — Imperial Gaul and the Rhine around 200 CE, with earlier campaigns superimposed. The different layers represent different periods.

Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul, 58–51 BCE, with rivers, hillforts, and the older southern province — The Gallic conquest, 58–51 BCE. Campaigns crossed river systems and the territories of existing communities from the older southern province toward the Atlantic, Channel, and Rhine. This conquest map belongs to the Republican military sequence, before the Augustan arrangement illustrated above.

Britannia 1

Britain was a large and expensive military province whose occupation changed substantially over nearly four centuries. Its southern towns, western and northern garrisons, rural districts, mineral resources, and cross-Channel connections formed several overlapping provincial worlds.

RP-15
Britannia
Londinium (London), Camulodunum (Colchester), Verulamium (St Albans), Eboracum (York)…
Britain contained numerous political communities, regional exchange systems, farming landscapes, and elite centres before conquest.…

The Alps and the Danube 10

The Alpine passes and Danubian river systems linked Italy, central Europe, the Balkans, and the Black Sea. Roads, forts, colonies, mines, fields, markets, and communities sustained an inhabited frontier rather than a single unbroken wall.

Macedonia, Greece, Epirus, and Thrace 4

The southern Balkans connected the Adriatic, Aegean, Danube approaches, and imperial straits. Older kingdoms and Greek civic communities became Roman jurisdictions, then smaller Christian provinces in a region whose political importance grew with Constantinople.

Anatolia and the Aegean 8

Anatolia’s provincial history combined dense Greek city networks, older regional traditions, plateau routes, client kingdoms, mountain corridors, and eastern frontier commands. Its provinces remained culturally varied under a common imperial sovereignty.

Anatolia and the Aegean: historical provincial geography — Anatolian cities, routes, and provincial regions around 200 CE. Eastern client and provincial relationships changed during the Severan settlement.

The Levant and eastern borderlands 7

The eastern borderlands required repeated choices between annexation, client rule, military occupation, and negotiated frontiers. Cities and communities continued across political changes that could rapidly transform provincial boundaries and relationships with neighbouring powers.

Egypt and Roman Africa 5

Egypt’s Nile system and North Africa’s varied coastal and inland landscapes supplied food, revenues, manufactured goods, soldiers, and major religious and intellectual traditions. Their histories include both enduring regional structures and profound episodes of conquest, division, and recovery.

Egypt and Roman Africa: historical provincial geography — North African cities, roads, and successive provincial divisions. The plate combines early and late arrangements; its dated outlines should be read separately.

The later western provinces 59

The late third and fourth centuries replaced many large commands with smaller civil jurisdictions. Their governors administered justice, taxation, public obligations, and relations with cities, while military command increasingly followed a separate structure. The following profiles describe the provinces of the late fourth- and early fifth-century administrative world. Their territories and effective control were not all stable at one moment.

The empire around 400 CE, showing the western and eastern division, prefectural groupings, and selected state industries — The empire around 400 CE. The broad colours represent prefectural groupings, while regional names, major cities, and symbols for selected state industries show the larger administrative and logistical setting. These groupings contained many individual provinces; a region labelled on this map is not necessarily one province.

Schematic late Roman Iberia with river systems and the divisions of Baetica, Lusitania, Gallaecia, Tarraconensis, and Carthaginiensis — Late Roman Iberia: rivers and provincial subdivision. Gallaecia and Carthaginiensis distinguish this landscape from the earlier three-province peninsula. The schematic outlines orient the following dossiers; administrative changes did not make watersheds, civic territories, and provincial borders coincide exactly.

The later eastern provinces 61

The eastern provincial system combined smaller civil jurisdictions with older urban networks and a military structure organized for the Danube, Anatolian approaches, and Persian frontier. Provinces bearing ancient geographical names often covered only part of the earlier region. The profiles below follow the administrative world around the late fourth and early fifth centuries, with later changes described where they alter the province’s historical identity.

Late Roman Balkan geography from the Danube to Greece and Crete — The later Balkan provincial landscape. Dacia south of the Danube, the two Epiri, Thessaly, Macedonia, Achaia, and the Thracian districts illustrate the replacement of large commands by smaller jurisdictions. The river network helps relate frontier districts to the Adriatic, Aegean, and imperial straits.

Earlier divisions, temporary arrangements, and the final ancient reorganizations 26

Some provincial identities belong between the major dossiers and the late provincial system. Others emerged after the late fourth-century pattern had already changed. These histories require their own profiles because a single name can conceal the replacement of one jurisdiction by another.

Royal territories and provincial borderlands 8

Roman power extended beyond ordinary provinces. Allied and dependent rulers could recognize imperial supremacy, receive appointments or subsidies, provide soldiers, and admit garrisons while retaining a kingdom’s institutions. Annexation might later absorb that territory into a neighbouring province rather than create a new province bearing the kingdom’s name.

Go further: the guides

The compendium's own chapters on how to read the entries, and the world around them.

GuideThe empire’s provincial transformationsProvince. A jurisdiction whose meaning changed from a magistrate’s assigned responsibility to a more territorial…GuideAlphabetical provincial indexNames used at more than one period have multiple entries. Numbered late provinces and temporary arrangements remain…

The lands of the empire

Italia and the central Mediterranean 4

Italia

Sicilia

Sardinia et Corsica

Gallia Cisalpina

Hispania 4

Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior

Hispania Baetica

Lusitania

Hispania Citerior Tarraconensis

Gaul and the Rhine 7

Gallia Narbonensis

Gallia Aquitania

Gallia Lugdunensis

Gallia Belgica

Germania Superior

Germania Inferior

The Augustan Germania beyond the Rhine

Britannia 1

Britannia

The Alps and the Danube 10

Alpes Maritimae

Alpes Cottiae

Alpes Graiae et Poeninae

Raetia

Noricum

Illyricum and Dalmatia

Pannonia: Superior, Inferior, and their successors

Moesia: Superior, Inferior, and their successors

Trajanic Dacia and the Three Dacias

Dacia Aureliana, Ripensis, and Mediterranea

Macedonia, Greece, Epirus, and Thrace 4

Macedonia

Achaia

Epirus, Epirus Vetus, and Epirus Nova

Thracia

Anatolia and the Aegean 8

Asia

Bithynia et Pontus

Galatia

Cappadocia

Cilicia

Lycia et Pamphylia

Cyprus

Creta et Cyrenaica

The Levant and eastern borderlands 7

Syria, Syria Coele, and Syria Phoenice

Judaea and Syria Palaestina

Arabia Petraea

Armenia: annexation, withdrawal, and the later Roman provinces

Mesopotamia

Osroene / Osrhoene

Assyria and Trajan’s disputed eastern province

Egypt and Roman Africa 5

Aegyptus

Africa Vetus, Africa Nova, and Africa Proconsularis

Numidia

Mauretania Caesariensis

Mauretania Tingitana

The later western provinces 59

Baetica

Lusitania

Gallaecia

Tarraconensis

Carthaginiensis

Insulae Baleares

Mauretania Tingitana

Belgica Prima

Belgica Secunda

Germania Prima

Germania Secunda

Lugdunensis Prima

Lugdunensis Secunda

Lugdunensis Tertia

Lugdunensis Senonia / Quarta

Maxima Sequanorum

Aquitania Prima

Aquitania Secunda

Novempopulana