The Me-1 road (previously known as the C-721 road) is situated on the island of

Menorca Menorca or Minorca (from la, Insula Minor, , smaller island, later ''Minorica'') is one of the Balearic Islands located in the Mediterranean Sea belonging to Spain. Its name derives from its size, contrasting it with nearby Majorca. Its capi ...

Balearic Islands The Balearic Islands ( es, Islas Baleares ; or ca, Illes Balears ) are an archipelago in the Balearic Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago is an autonomous community and a province of Spain; its capital is ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. It connects the two main cities of the island,

Mahón Mahón (), officially Maó (), and also written as Mahon or Port Mahon in English, is the capital and second largest city of Menorca. The city is located on the eastern coast of the island, which is part of the archipelago and autonomous communi ...

and Ciutadella. In 2001 improvements were made to the road; the lanes were widened and the road was diverted from the urban centres of Alayor and

Ferreries Ferreries is a municipality on the island of Menorca, in the Spanish autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. Its name is derived from the Catalan word ''ferrer'' ("blacksmith"), which in turn, comes from Latin Latin (, or , ) is a cl ...

. It has a total length of 45 kilometres.

History

The origins of the road date back to the 2nd century BC, when the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

conquered the

Quintus Caecilius Metellus Balearicus Quintus Caecilius Metellus Balearicus (born c. 170 BC) was a Roman statesman and general who was elected consul for the year 123 BC. Career Quintus Caecilius Metellus was the eldest son of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, the Roman consul o ...

ordered for a

Roman road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

to be built which united the cities of Magonis (now Mahón) and Jamma (now Ciudadella). Since then route of the road has changed very little.

Name

Former name

Before the improvements in 2001 the road was called the C-721. This name was formed using a combination of the letter ''C'', identifying that the road is regional (Spanish: ''comarcal''), with the following three numbers: * Firstly: ''7'', indicating that the road is situated on the

. * Secondly: ''2'', indicating that it is on the island of

. * Lastly: ''1'', the number that it received in the order of all the regional roads on the island.

Current name

Currently the road is designated Me-1; The prefix ''Me'' indicates that it belongs to the Menorca road network, and the ''1'' is the number that it has in the order of the entire road network on the island.

External links

Consell Insular de Menorca
(''Spanish'') Roads in Spain {{Spain-road-stub