A canaba (plural canabae)[1] was the Latin term for a hut or hovel and was later (from the time of Hadrian)[2] used typically to mean a town that emerged as a civilian settlement (canabae legionis) in the vicinity of a Roman legionary fortress (castrum).
[3] A settlement that grew up outside a smaller Roman fort was called a vicus (village, plural vici).
Canabae were also often divided into vici.
Permanent forts attracted military dependants and civilian contractors who serviced the base and needed housing; traders, artisans, sellers of food and drink, prostitutes, and also unofficial wives of soldiers and their children and hence most forts had vici or canabae.
Some Canabae of Legionary Fortresses:[4]