Centum Prata

Centum Prata is the name of a Roman vicus, whose remains are located on the eastern Zürichsee lakeshore in Kempraten, a locality of the municipality Rapperswil-Jona in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland.

[1][2] The main road (as of today, Kreuzstrasse and Fluhstrasse) of the vicus Centum Prata was built parallel to the Zürichsee lakeshore at the so-called Kempratnerbucht, meaning bay of Kempraten.

Further remains of stone residential and commercial buildings are located at Meienbergstrasse, where some pillars and the stairs to the entrance of the Forum are re-erected, and in the cemetery in the St. Ursula chapel in Rapperswil.

The area at the so-called Kempratnerbucht, a natural indentation on the eastern lake shore, extends between Feldbach and the Lindenhof hill in Rapperswil on a length of about 3 kilometres (2 mi).

Centum Prata was founded around 40 AD at the intersection of the roads between Zürich (Turicum) and assumably via Irgenhausen Castrum towards Winterthur (Vitudurum),[3] on the waterway over Obersee, the present Linth canal and Walensee towards Chur (Curia Raetorum), and on the alpine route towards the Roman heartland in northern Italy.

Following the prehistorical lake crossings at the present Seedamm isthmus, a 6 metres (20 ft) wide wooden bridge under Empire Marcus Aurelius was built around 161–180.

Centum Prata became an important Roman settlement which besides its regional and transport hub functions also may have served to secure the province borders from the 1st to the 4th century AD.

Following the withdrawal of Roman troops to Italy around 400 AD, the settlement was continuously used by the Gallo-Roman population, and remained even after the invasion of the Alemanni up to the present time inhabited.