Grid plan
A city plan of perpendicular streets, ancient and widespread.
The grid plan is a city layout where streets intersect at right angles, creating a network of perpendicular blocks. This design has two key features: many intersections and a right-angled geometry. These traits make moving around easier, help people find their way, and offer direct routes to destinations. The approach is ancient and appeared independently in several cultures, with some of the earliest planned cities using it in the Indian subcontinent.
In ancient Rome, the method of measuring land in a grid was called centuriation. By 2600 BC, the Indus Valley cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were built with straight north–south and east–west streets dividing blocks, which were further split by small lanes. Later, from the 1st millennium BC into the 11th century AD, cities and monasteries like Sirkap, Taxila, and Thimi also used grid designs. In Egypt, a workers' village at Giza (2570–2500 BC) housed a rotating labor force in long gallery blocks separated by formal grid streets. Many pyramid-cult cities shared a common orientation: a north–south axis from the royal palace and an east–west axis from the temple, meeting at a central plaza where king and god merged.
In China, grid plans have a continuous tradition from the 15th century BC onward. The Kaogongji, written during the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BC), stated that a capital should be square, with three gates on each side leading to nine main streets that crisscross the city. The royal court was to be in the south, the marketplace in the north, the imperial ancestral temple in the east, and the altar to the gods of land and grain in the west. This Chinese grid design heavily influenced Japan; Heian-kyō (now Kyoto), the imperial capital from 794 to 1868, was built following Chinese feng shui and modeled on the ancient capitals of Chang'an and Luoyang.
Teotihuacan, near modern Mexico City, is the largest ancient grid-plan site in the Americas, covering 21 square kilometers. Perhaps the most famous grid system is the one spread by the Roman Empire. The Romans adopted the grid from the Greeks, who introduced it to Italy through trade and conquest.
- Earliest known examples
- Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, Indus Valley civilization, by 2600 BC
- Ancient roman term
- centuriation
- Key ancient greek proponent
- Hippodamus of Miletus (498–408 BC)
- Roman grid axes
- decumanus maximus (east–west) and cardo maximus (north–south)
- Largest ancient grid site in the america
- Teotihuacan, covering 21 square kilometres
- Chinese grid guidelines
- Kaogongji, Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BC)
Lore & Background
By 2600 BC, the Indus Valley cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were built with blocks divided by a grid of straight streets running north–south and east–west, each block subdivided by small lanes. Later, cities and monasteries such as Sirkap, Taxila, and Thimi (1st millennium BC to 11th century AD) also used grid-based designs. In Egypt, a workers' village at Giza (2570–2500 BC) housed a rotating labor force in blocks of long galleries separated by streets in a formal grid.
Reader's Guide
The grid plan's significance lies in its independent emergence across multiple ancient cultures and its enduring influence on urban planning. In China, grid planning was continuous from the 15th century BC onward, with guidelines codified in the Kaogongji during the Spring and Autumn period. This tradition spread to Japan and Korea, where capitals like Heian-kyō (Kyoto) and Gyeongju adapted Chinese models. In the Americas, Teotihuacan remains the largest ancient grid-plan site. The Roman Empire propagated the grid through its colonies, using centuriation for land measurement and standardizing military castra with decumanus maximus and cardo maximus axes. This Roman model was later revived in medieval European bastides and Spanish colonial settlements. The grid's practical advantages—ease of orientation, efficient movement, and standardized land division—made it a recurring tool for imperial expansion and urban organization across continents and millennia.
Did You Know?
- The grid plan method of land measurement in ancient Rome was called centuriation.
- The Greek grid plan was probably best exemplified in Priene, in present-day western Turkey, where the orthogonal city grid was based on cardinal points on sloping terrain.
- In Japan, the ancient capital Heian-kyō (Kyoto) was built in accordance with traditional Chinese feng shui following the model of Chang'an and Luoyang.
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