Italy · 41.8986°, 12.4769°
Rome Map Poster: The Tiber, the Vatican and the Trident
Why this city works as a poster
Rome layers more than two thousand years of street plans, and the map shows it: at the heart, the Campus Martius is a tangle of lanes with no dominant direction, tucked into a bend of the Tiber. Around it, very crisp urban gestures stand out: the trident of Piazza del Popolo, three streets diverging from one square, and the elliptical colonnade of St Peter's across the river. The S-shaped Tiber ties it all together.
Recommended framing
About 5 km across, centred on the Pantheon, to hold both bends of the Tiber, the Vatican to the west and the Villa Borghese to the north-east. At 1.5 km, Piazza del Popolo or St Peter's Square alone become the subject of the poster.
Which theme to pick
A warm theme, ochre or terracotta, suits Rome, and it should distinguish parks: the Villa Borghese and the Janiculum balance the density of the centre. The narrow Tiber benefits from a clearly contrasting colour.
Where to centre the map
- Piazza del Popolo
- The trident: three straight streets fanning out to the south, a unique motif.
- Saint-Pierre
- The ellipse of the colonnade and the axis of Via della Conciliazione, very legible at 1 km.
- Isola Tiberina
- The only island in the Tiber in Rome: a small shuttle shape in the middle of the river.
How its streets are oriented
Within 3 km of the centre, we measured the orientation of 509 km of streets. Its orientation order is 0.05 out of 1: Rome ranks 44th of the 64 cities in the study.
The streets run in almost every direction: no axis dominates, the pattern is organic.
See the full study: street orientation in 64 cities