---
title: "Map of Paul’s missionary journeys"
canonical: "https://paulineletters.com/explore/map"
published: "2026-07-19"
updated: "2026-08-01"
license: "https://paulineletters.com/explore/license"
source: "Pauline Letters"
---

# Map of Paul’s missionary journeys

> Geography turns the names in Acts into a demanding physical journey across roads, mountain corridors, ports, islands, and imperial cities.

**Where did Paul actually travel, and how much of the route is certain?**

Paul’s attested travel runs from Jerusalem and Damascus through Cyprus and Asia Minor into Macedonia and Achaia, then by sea to Rome. Every stop on this map sits at real coordinates taken from published ancient-world gazetteers, and a leg Acts states is drawn differently from one reconstructed between two known points.

## Where the coordinates come from

Every named place on this map sits at a real coordinate rather than an artistic position. Sites are taken from published ancient-world gazetteers, principally Pleiades, ToposText, and the Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire, and cross-checked against modern identifications where a city has been continuously occupied, as Damascus, Tarsus, Athens, and Rome have.

Precision is recorded rather than assumed. A coordinate may identify an excavated site, a city centroid where the ancient town lies beneath a modern one, a debated identification, or a region with no single point at all. Lystra and Derbe fall into the debated class. Provinces and travel corridors are marked regional instead of being pinned to a spot the text never specifies.

## Roads, passes, and sea lanes

The route is drawn as travel rather than as straight lines between dots. Overland legs follow the corridors the terrain allows, such as the Cilician Gates and the pass over the Amanus range, and sea legs follow plausible sailing water. That distinction is enforced, not merely intended: a leg marked as walked has to stay on land and a leg marked as sailed has to stay off it, or the project fails its own build.

Where Acts states a movement, the map draws it. Where Acts jumps and the intervening travel is inferred, the map still shows a crossing, because Paul did not teleport, but the guides say plainly that the route between those two points is reconstruction. The run past Fair Havens is the clearest case: the ports are named, the storm track is not.

## Common questions

### How many missionary journeys did Paul make?

Acts describes three journeys out of Syrian Antioch, followed by the voyage to Rome as a prisoner. The numbering is a later convention rather than something Acts counts, and the voyage is usually treated separately because Paul travels under guard rather than by his own plan.

### Did Paul travel by land or by sea?

Both, and the text usually shows which. Acts names ports and sailings for the long crossings and describes overland stages through the interior. Where it is silent, this project draws the shorter attested option and labels it as reconstruction rather than inventing a route.

### Where do the map’s coordinates come from?

From published ancient-world gazetteers — Pleiades, ToposText, and the Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire — cross-checked against secure modern identifications. Where the text names a province or a travel corridor rather than a city, the entry is marked regional instead of being given false precision.

### Which locations on Paul’s route are disputed?

Lystra, Derbe, and the shipwreck route past Fair Havens are the best known. Each appears with the identification this project uses and a visible label recording that the placement is debated, so a contested site is never shown as settled.

---

Canonical: https://paulineletters.com/explore/map