In the Prague metropolitan area, 3,673 kilometers of paths have disappeared over the last century—roughly the distance between Porto and Moscow, spanning the entire continent of Europe. Most of these were rural roads disrupted by collectivization and land consolidation in the 20th century, but the figure also includes sections of long-distance trade routes and pilgrimage trails. Within the city of Prague itself, approximately 239 kilometers of vanished paths have been mapped; of these, 141 kilometers lie on land owned by the capital city, 58 kilometers belong to the state, and the remaining 40 kilometers are owned by other parties. Prague thus holds the key to more than half of these plots of land—and with it, a tool for reconnecting the surrounding landscape.

A path is more than just a line connecting two points

Here, a path is not viewed merely as a transportation route, but as a multifunctional element of the landscape. A field path has always been primarily a means of access to farmland, but it was also a place where people interacted with the landscape and where their relationship to it was shaped. However, industrialization, land consolidation, and the advent of heavy agricultural machinery have largely erased this role.

Yet roads lined with vegetation—whether tree-lined avenues, shrub belts, or simply extensive grassy verges—can simultaneously mitigate erosion, trap dust, slow water runoff, and provide refuge for dozens of species of insects, birds, and small mammals. The unpaved surface of the road functions as a habitat in its own right: it is home to light-loving and drought-tolerant species that would not survive elsewhere in an intensively farmed landscape. The road thus becomes at once a transportation artery, an ecological corridor, and a social space.

From where they led: Trade, pilgrimages, and Prague as a crossroads

The roads around Prague served purposes other than agriculture. Thanks to its central location in Europe, Prague has long been a crossroads of long-distance trade routes connecting it to other major cities. Many of today’s highways essentially follow the routes of these historic connections. This makes sense, as they follow the smoothest path through the terrain, just as the old roads did.

In addition to trade, Prague has also been a major pilgrimage hub since the Middle Ages. Trails led to St. Vitus Cathedral at the Castle or connected to long-distance routes such as the Way of St. James (Camino de Santiago). It is no coincidence that regional pilgrimage routes such as the Via Sancta, the St. Ludmila Trail, and the Cyril and Methodius Trail also pass through the city today. Their chapels and stations of the cross are still visible in the city’s layout today, although some remain inaccessible, surrounded by a golf course or a military complex. Pilgrimage routes could thus be viewed not merely as tourist trails, but as a full-fledged part of public infrastructure that should be protected and developed just as much as bike paths or sidewalks.

How can a vanished path even be found?

The methodology used by the team at the IPR Prague Office of Landscape and Green Infrastructure combines several sources. The foundation is provided by the so-called “imperial prints”—cadastral maps dating back roughly two hundred years, from a time when the landscape still respected the natural terrain. These were compared with the current street and road network, and all lines that exist on the maps but are no longer used were marked as defunct roads. Where georeferenced imperial maps were missing, a second military survey served as the basis. Additional sources include a digital elevation model, which reveals subtle terrain grooves left by centuries of foot traffic and carts; old aerial photographs taken during periods of drought, when the path’s outline reemerges through the vegetation; and the memories and chronicles of local residents.

What can be done with this layer

The mapped network is not just an archival curiosity. It can be integrated with the current map of Prague’s bicycle master plan to identify which sections should be prioritized for restoration—whether because they are located on city-owned land or because they fill in a missing part of the planned bicycle network. On a broader, metropolitan scale, the future non-motorized network can be structured according to five principles: green radials leading from Prague into the open countryside; routes along waterways; routes along linear infrastructure such as highways and railroads; small landscape features formed by paths that have lost their connecting function; and local tangential connections replacing the original concept of a ring road around the entire city of Prague.

The result is a proposed network designed to connect Prague with the surrounding landscape regions—the Elbe River, the Bohemian Karst, the Křivoklát region, the Brdy Mountains, and the Posázaví region—while also making the agricultural landscape between them accessible. A pilot section between Prague-Letňany and the Elbe River, which the team developed in collaboration with the local action group Nad Prahou, demonstrated what this might look like in practice. Ninety percent of the route is already passable today. “Restoring trails doesn’t have to be complicated; from clearing a trail path to preparing the surface and planting tree-lined avenues, we can gradually create new trails in the landscape and spaces for recreation. These must be viewed as full-fledged public infrastructure. It is therefore necessary to include them in plans, add signage and street furniture, and take them into account in land development and transportation projects,” says Marek Zděradička, director of the Department of Infrastructure at IPR Prague. This is not, therefore, about a grand construction of new infrastructure, but primarily about utilizing what already exists: land owned by the city or municipality, and the lines that the landscape itself remembers.