Aqueducts
Build an aqueduct that carries water across a valley to the city: a Roman bridge with three tiers of arches like the Pont du Gard, the granite arches of Segovia, the striped piers of Mérida, tall pointed arches as in Spoleto and Lisbon, a colonial aqueduct from Mexico or an iron canal for boats. Choose whether the channel is level or keeps sloping down a little, so one bucket of water fills the whole channel. Below you can see how everything is calculated.
Point at a block for the explanation. Click a block to mark it as placed. The side view shows the section at the chosen column, Layer shows the chosen layer from above.
Build plan
Per layer
| Layer | Parts | Blocks |
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A number is the count of blocks of that part in that layer, in the colour of the part. Click a layer to see it from above.
Build tips
- An aqueduct starts at a spring in the hills and ends in the city. Lay it out in your world from a high place to a lower one.
- Let the channel slope down: then the water flows by itself from one end to the other, as with the Romans.
3D and layer-by-layer build plan
To Minecraft
Download the aqueduct as a schematic file and paste it with WorldEdit, or build it with a hologram in Litematica.
How it is calculated
History and fun facts
Water for the city
Roman cities needed a lot of water: for bathhouses, fountains, toilets and homes. An aqueduct brought the water from a spring in the hills to the city. Most of it ran underground or along the hillside; only where a valley was in the way did they build a bridge of arches.
The water flowed only because of the slope: the channel dropped very gradually. In the aqueduct of Nîmes, to which the Pont du Gard belongs, about 1 in 3,000 on average.
The Pont du Gard
The Pont du Gard in the south of France was built in the 1st century. It is almost 49 metres high, with three tiers of arches: 6 large ones at the bottom, 11 in the middle and at the top a row of small arches, of which 35 remain today. The channel ran over the top tier.
Segovia and Mérida
The aqueduct of Segovia in Spain is built of some 24,000 granite blocks, without mortar. In the middle it stands in two tiers, more than 28 metres high. It is usually dated to the time of Emperor Trajan, around the year 100.
In Mérida stands Los Milagros, the miracles: piers of granite with bands of red brick between them, about 25 metres high.
Constantinople
In Constantinople, now Istanbul, the aqueduct of Valens was completed in 368. The stretch with the arches was almost a kilometre long, partly in two tiers, and was part of a water supply hundreds of kilometres long.
After the Romans
People kept building aqueducts after the Romans. The Ponte delle Torri in Spoleto is about 80 metres high, with tall arches over a gorge; nobody knows for sure exactly when it was built. The Águas Livres aqueduct in Lisbon has a pointed arch some 65 metres high and came through the great earthquake of 1755.
In Mexico, Father Tembleque built an aqueduct from 1554 to 1571 that is now World Heritage. The aqueduct of Querétaro, with 74 arches, was built from 1726 to 1738.
A canal in the sky
In Wales the Pontcysyllte aqueduct by Thomas Telford opened in 1805. On stone piers lies an iron trough full of water, about 38 metres above the River Dee. Boats still cross it, with a towpath alongside.
Did you know?
- The word aqueduct comes from the Latin aqua (water) and ducere (to lead).
- In Minecraft water flows 7 blocks across flat land. Let your channel drop every 7 blocks and it keeps flowing forever.
- Segovia still got water through the Roman aqueduct into the 20th century.
- A Roman channel was often covered with slabs, so that no dirt fell in and the water stayed cool.
About this tool
With this Minecraft aqueduct generator you build an aqueduct of arches in one, two or three tiers: Roman like the Pont du Gard and Segovia, with bands of brick as in Mérida, with pointed arches over a deep valley, colonial as in Mexico, or as an iron canal for boats like Pontcysyllte.
You choose the number of arches, the width of arches and piers, the height of every tier and whether the top tier gets small arches. The channel is level or keeps sloping down a little, so one bucket of water is enough. With a valley and a river underneath, the aqueduct really stands in the landscape. Twelve examples help you start.
The tool counts all blocks, with a build plan per layer, a 3D preview and a .schem download. This way you build a Roman aqueduct in Minecraft. For the fountains in the city there is Fountains, for ordinary bridges Bridges.
Frequently asked questions
How do I make water flow through an aqueduct?
Under Course choose: Keeps sloping down a little, and one layer lower every 7 blocks (or fewer). Finish the channel and pour one bucket of water at the high west end. The water then flows by itself to the end, because it never has to go more than 7 blocks on the flat.
Why does the channel drop so much faster in Minecraft than with the Romans?
In reality water already flows on a very small slope. In Minecraft water is per block, and flowing water stops after 7 blocks on a flat bottom. That is why the channel has to drop a whole layer every few blocks.
Can I sail a boat across it?
Choose the canal aqueduct with the iron trough, like Pontcysyllte. It has a level trough with source water everywhere, which a boat can sail on, and a towpath beside it.
Can I build this in Bedrock?
Yes. The front view and the build plan per layer work in every version. The .schem file is for Java Edition with WorldEdit or Litematica.