Abstract

The importance of rural roads in economic development is that they help effectively in linking urban centers with rural settlements, as well as linking production areas with consumption areas, ensuring the transportation of individuals and goods, facilitating the marketing of products, and easy access to services available in the study area, as well as reducing transportation pressure on roads. other countries, and reduce pollution in them as well as maintaining their infrastructure, so countries seek to expand the network of land roads in general and rural roads in particular and work to improve them in accordance with standards of quality, safety and security as they represent part of the development plans of these countries.
Therefore, the rural road network is one of the complements of the foundational structures in Babil Governorate due to its importance in achieving its direct impact on developing the countryside and its services from a social and economic perspective, as it is a means of linking the countryside to the cities. Since Babil Governorate is one of the governorates that is famous for agriculture and in which the proportion of the rural population is increasing, which gives Priority is given to rural roads and services.
The research aims to identify how the rural road network in Babil Governorate developed over historical stages, as it was initially made up of dirt paths and paths in different directions. Since the beginnings of these paths in Iraq go back to successive eras of time, the study found that a number Rural roads during the period 1980-1989 were (22) and their length was (259.5), while during the period 1990-1999 their number was (4) and their length was (46.5), while during the period 2000-2010 their number