Three types of roads can be observed in the city: radial, ring, and linear. Significantly, the radial road system is focused on the Royal Centre. The roads here pass through two or more gateways in the walls that define and encircle the Royal Centre, and most converge on the enclosure in front of the Ramachandra Temple. For example, one of the most important roads running through the Urban Core, and certainly the longest, is the Northeast road (NE). From the Ramachandra Temple, it passes by a number of shrines located on either side of a gateway, through a colonnade, by temples (one of which states that it is located on the bazaar of the pansupari sellers), through the eastern gateway (according to an early inscription), and up the Northeast Valley, where it eventually divides into two branches; one (NE1) leading through a gateway in the northeast walls to Talarighat, the river crossing to Anegondi, the other (NE2) though a gateway in the east wall to an unknown location to the east. Other radial roads lead to the north, east, and southeast. Roads entering the Urban Core from the southwest and northwest do not extend to the Ramachandra Temple.

A second, or ring, series of roads encircle the Royal Centre. The south and east ring roads (SR, ER) and one of the two north ring roads (NR2), pass outside the walls of the Royal Centre. The south ring road continues northward to the village of Hampi.

The third type, linear roads, include a major route linking Hampi to the town now known as Hospet (HH). It also includes a road running along the top of the Turuttu canal (TC) and bazaar streets that extend outward from major temple complexes, such as the Virupaksha (TP) and Vitthala (VT) roads. Several of these roads link to a route along the south bank of the river (SB). One branch of this route leads to a stone bridge (TB), more than 400 m long, which once connected the south and north bank of the river.

For more on roads link to Fritz 1983, "The Roads of Vijayanagara"; for the bridge across the Tungabhadra River link to Fritz 2006, "The Bridge at Vitthalapura"; for the symbolic gateways that protected the sacred region in which the city was located link to Das 2006, "The Mystic Gateways into Pampakshetra". Roads in the central city are traced in Fritz, Michell and Nagaraja Rao 1984, The Royal Centre at Vijayanagara (see Project Publications). Roads in the Metropolitan Area are noted by Sinopoli and Morrison 2007, The Vijayangara Metropolitan Survey (see Bibliography).