{{Short description|City block or apartment building in ancient Roman cities}} {{See also|History of urban planning}} {{Italics title}} [[File:Calleva Atrebatum plan.png|thumb|250px|Plan of Calleva Atrebatum]]
The Latin word '''{{lang|la|insula}}''' ({{lit|island}}; {{plural form}}: {{lang|la|insulae}}) was used in Roman cities to mean either a city block in a city plan (i.e. a building area surrounded by four streets)<ref name="Iyyer2009">{{cite book |author= Chaitanya Iyyer |title= Land Management |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=1Bls24MgPuMC&pg=PA147 |date=1 December 2009 |publisher= Global India Publications |isbn=978-93-80228-48-8 |page=147}}</ref> or later a type of apartment building that occupied such a city block specifically in Rome and nearby Ostia.<ref name="Aldrete2004">{{cite book|author=Gregory S. Aldrete|title=Daily Life in the Roman City: Rome, Pompeii and Ostia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=40AjSfdJXaAC&pg=PA78|year=2004|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-33174-9|pages=78–80}}</ref><ref name="Dyson2010">{{cite book|author=Stephen L. Dyson|title=Rome: A Living Portrait of an Ancient City|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wfN5dd5wbWgC&pg=PA21|date=1 August 2010|publisher=JHU Press|isbn=978-1-4214-0101-0|pages=217–9}}</ref> The latter type of ''Insulae'' were known to be prone to fire and rife with disease.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3t8hBAAAQBAJ&q=augustus+biography+Thurinus+name|title=Augustus: First Emperor of Rome|last=Goldsworthy|first=Adrian|date=28 August 2014|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-21666-0|language=en|pages=19}}</ref>
A standard Roman city plan<ref>{{cite book|last=Macaulay|first=David|title=City: A Story of Roman Planning and Engineering|url=https://archive.org/details/citystoryofroman00maca|url-access=registration|location=Boston|publisher=Houghton-Mifflin|year=1974}}</ref> was based on a grid of orthogonal (laid out on right angles) streets.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.jaysromanhistory.com/romeweb/engineer/town1.htm | title=Roman Engineers: A Plan for a Small Roman City}}</ref> It was founded on ancient Greek city models, described by Hippodamus. It was used especially when new cities were established, e.g. in Roman {{lang|la|coloniae}}.
The streets of each city were designated the ''decumani'' (east–west-oriented) and ''cardines'' (north–south). The principal streets, the ''decumanus maximus'' and ''cardo maximus'', intersected at or close to the forum, around which the most important public buildings were sited.
==References== {{reflist}}
==Sources and further reading== *The Insula IX Excavation: http://www.reading.ac.uk/silchester/town-life/insula_ix.php link broken *Pompeii Insula 9: http://donovanimages.co.nz/proxima-veritati/insula-9/index.html
Category:History of urban planning Category:Ancient Roman city planning {{Ancient-Rome-stub}}