AN INTERDISCIPLINARY METHODOLOGY FOR THE CHARACTERIZATION AND VISUALIZATION OF THE HERITAGE OF ROADWAY CORRIDORS* MAR LOREN-M  ENDEZ, RAFAEL MATA-OLMO, RITA RUIZ, and DANIEL PINZ  ON-AYALA ABSTRACT. Roads, particularly since the advent of motorized traffic, have hugely impacted contemporary landscapes. Although their significance was noted in the 1980s, specific roadway-heritage studies are scarce. Research in different disciplines has identi- fied certain features of roads, but an integrated approach to roadway heritage or a con- sensus on what this constitutes are lacking. This article proposes an interdisciplinary methodology to assess roadway heritage. Roadways are interpreted within the framework of semantic openness that currently characterizes heritage studies, territory being the basic element of interpretation. Rather than a fragmented approach to conservation, the research defines integrated heritage configurations where natural, cultural, and historical features combine to produce a cohesive form of heritage. GIS (Geographical information systems) technology is used with an online database to assess the complexity of roadway heritage. ICT (Information and communications technology) strategies to raise public awareness are outlined. The methodology is applied to assess the historical N-340 Mediterranean roadway corridor in Spain. Keywords: roadway-corridor heritage, roadway-assessment methodology, online heritage databases, GIS technology. Roads, particularly those adapted to the changing needs of motorized traffic, have greatly conditioned land use and human occupation, hugely impacting our contemporary landscapes. The waves of ongoing transformation brought about by road construction have generally resulted in roads not being consid- ered worthy of heritage appraisal. Although the significance of these “everyday landscapes” was noted in the 1980s by cultural geographers such as John Brinckerhoff Jackson (1984), specific roadway heritage studies are recent and still scarce. Research in the separate disciplines of geography, civil engineering, urban planning, and architecture has identified certain features of roads, but a thorough and integrated approach to roadway heritage—or even a consensus on what this constitutes—is lacking. Firstly, in this article, roadways are interpreted within the framework of the semantic and methodological openness that currently characterizes the field of heritage studies. Heritage assessment in general has recently widened *The study was grant-aided by the European Regional Development Fund within the framework of a research program involving heritage experts engaged in spatial analysis in different fields, ranging from civil engineer- ing and geography to architecture and urban planning. k DR.LOREN-M  ENDEZ is a professor of architectural history, theory and composition at Seville University, Seville 41002, Spain; [marloren@us.es]. DR.MATA-OLMO is a professor of geography at the Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid 28049, Spain; [rafael.mata@uam.es]. DR.RUIZ is an assistant professor of urban and landscape planning at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, Ciudad Real 13004, Spain; [rita.ruiz@uclm.es]. DR.PINZ  ON-AYALA is a postdoctoral researcher in architectural history at Seville University, Seville 41002, Spain; [daniel@arqyestudio.com]. Geographical Review 106 (4): 489–515, October 2016 Copyright © 2016 by the American Geographical Society of New York