Pion--nucleon scattering is one of the most fundamental processes in nuclear and hadronic physics, with applications that range from the scalar couplings of the nucleon to the long-range part of two-pion-exchange potentials and three-nucleon forces in Chiral Effective Field Theory.
In this talk, we show how the fruitful combination of dispersion-theoretical methods with modern high-precision data of hadronic atoms allows for a determination of pion--nucleon scattering amplitudes at low energies with an unprecedented accuracy. Special attention will be paid to the extraction of the pion--nucleon $\sigma$-term, discussing in detail the current tension with recent lattice results, the determination of the pion--pion continuum in the electromagnetic nucleon form factors, and the determination of the low-energy constants of chiral perturbation theory.