Highway Systems By Country

This article describes the highway systems available in selected countries.

Albania

In Albania, major cities are linked with either new single/dual carriageways or well maintained state roads marked as "SH" ().

There is a dual carriageway connecting the port city of Durrës with Tirana, Vlorë, and partially Kukës.

There are three official motorway segments in Albania marked with an "A" ():

Thumanë–Milot–Rrëshen–Kalimash (A1),

Levan–Vlorë (A2),

and partly Tirane–Elbasan (A3).

Most rural segments continue to remain in poor condition as their reconstruction has only begun in the late 2000s by the Albanian Development Fund.

Algeria

About of highways in Algeria are in service and another are under construction.

Australia

In Australia, a ''highway'' is a distinct type of road from freeways, expressways, and motorways. The word ''highway'' is generally used to mean major roads connecting large cities, towns and different parts of metropolitan areas. Metropolitan highways often have traffic lights at intersections, and rural highways usually have only one lane in each direction. The words ''freeway'', ''expressway'' or ''motorway'' are generally reserved for the most arterial routes, usually with grade-separated intersections and usually significantly straightened and widened to a minimum of four lanes. The term ''motorway'' is used in some Australian cities to refer to freeways that have been allocated a metropolitan route number. Roads may be part-highway and part-freeway until they are fully upgraded. The Cahill expressway is the only named expressway in New South Wales, which opened in 1954, the first in the region.

Austria

In contrast to Germany, according to a 2002 amendment of the Austrian federal road act, is the official term referring only to autobahns () and limited-access roads (, ). The administration of all other former federal highways () has passed to the federal states ().

Therefore, while officially classified as , they are still colloquially called and have retained their 'B' designation (except for Vorarlberg), followed by the number and a name. They are marked by a blue number sign.

Belgium

Belgium has the second-highest density highway network in Europe after the Netherlands, at per . Most Belgian highways have three lanes with a few exceptions like the ring roads around Brussels and Antwerp, which have five or six lanes in some stretches. Belgium is situated at a crossroads of several countries, and its highways are used by many nationalities. Belgian highways are indicated by the letter "A" and a European number, with E numbers being used most often. Roads that are (part of) a ring road around a city or a town are usually indicated by an R number. Many of the highways in Belgium are illuminated at night, since there is a surplus of nuclear-powered electricity during off-peak hours.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

As for Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Pan-European Corridor Vc Motorway, Budapest–Osijek–Sarajevo– Ploče, is one of the most significant and project of the highest priority; in Bosnia and Herzegovina it coincides with A1 Motorway. The construction works on the road have already begun, but intensified beginning of the construction will be a key starter of economic and social activities, and will enable Bosnia and Herzegovina to be connected to main the European traffic network, as well as to global European economic and social structure.

Construction of the motorway, which has a total length of , will provide connections to neighboring countries and regions, have effects on stabilization and development, improvements in transport conditions and quality of life, improvements in economic competitiveness, launching of new projects and enhancement of private investments nationally and internationally.

Botswana

Botswana has a network of roads, of varied quality and capacity, totalling about . Other than these, are paved (including of motorways). The remaining are unpaved. Road distances are shown in kilometers and Botswana speed limits are indicated in kilometers per hour (kph) or by the use of the national speed limit (NSL) symbol. Some vehicle categories have various lower maximum limits enforced by speed limits, for example trucks.

Brazil

In Brazil, highways (or expressways/freeways) are called ''rodovia'', and Brazilian highways are divided into two types: regional highways (generally of less importance and located entirely within a state) and national highways (of major importance to the country). In Brazil, is the name given exclusively to roads connecting two or more cities with a sizable distance separating the extremes of the highway. Urban highways for commuting are uncommon in Brazil, and when they are present, they receive different names, depending on the region (Avenida, Marginal, Linha, Via, Eixo, etc.). Very rarely are names other than used.

Regional highways are named YY-XXX, where YY is the abbreviation of the state where the highway is running in and XXX is a number (e.g. SP-280; where SP means that the highway is running entirely in the state of São Paulo).

National highways are named BR-XXX. National highways connect multiple states altogether, are of major importance to the national economy and/or connect Brazil to other countries. The meaning of the numbers are as follows:
* 001–100 – the highway runs radially from Brasília. It is an exception to the cases below.
* 101–200 – the highway runs in a south–north direction.
* 201–300 – the highway runs in a west–east direction
* 301–400 – that the highway runs in a diagonal direction (northwest–southeast, for example)
* 400–499 – another exception – less important highways whose function is to connect a city to an arterial highway nearby.

Often, Brazilian highways receive names (of famous people, etc.) on top of their YY/BR-XXX designation (example: SP-280 is also known as Rodovia Castelo Branco).

Bulgaria

The strategic location of the country on the Balkan Peninsula is decisive for the fact that four out of ten land Pan-European corridors run through it, and ten European routes – six A-class and four B-class routes.

Highways in Bulgaria are dual carriageways, grade separated with controlled-access, designed for high speeds. In 2012 legislation amendments defined two types of highways: motorways and expressways. The main differences are that motorways have emergency lanes and the maximum allowed speed limit is , while expressways do not and the speed limit is .

As of December 2018, of motorways are in service, with another being under various stages of construction. More than of motorways are planned. Also, several expressways are planned.

Canada

* In Canada, there is no national standard for nomenclature, although in non-technical contexts ''highway'' appears to be most popular in most areas. The general speed limits on most Canadian highways range between and on two-lane highways rural and urban highways and between and on multi-lane, divided highways. Prairie Provinces are known for having higher speed limits than Central Canada and the Maritimes because of the flat geography and more car-dominant way of life; however, British Columbia remains the only province in Canada to have a speed limit of on the Coquihalla Freeway.
* Canada is the second-largest country in the world in terms of land area, though it only has of paved roads. This is far less highway and road distance than the United States, which is smaller, but has more than of paved roads and highways. However, Canada still has many more roads and highways than Russia, the largest country in the world in land area, with an estimated just 336,000 kilometres (208,000 miles) of paved roads.
* The most extensive freeway network in Canada is in the well-populated southeastern Canada, linking southern Ontario, southern Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the United States. This makes the freeway network there very well-travelled, requiring these routes to be well-maintained to overcome the frequently harsh winter weather, wide enough to accommodate the high traffic volumes that they carry in large metropolitan areas (such as around Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and Detroit) in order to reduce the economic problems and frustrations that result from heavy traffic congestion, and also be safe enough to reduce the number of vehicle accidents.
*Ontario has some of the busiest freeways in North America. It has all public roads legally defined as ''highways'', though provincially managed roads are known legally as ''Provincial Highways''. In day-to-day usage, the term ''highway'' is used for provincial routes or freeways. It is also common for surface routes to be referred to by number (e.g. "Take ''Highway 10'' from Mississauga to Owen Sound"), especially by older generations. The words ''freeway'' or ''expressway'' are sometimes used to refer to controlled-access, high-speed, grade-separated highways such as the 400-series highways, the Gardiner Expressway, the Don Valley Parkway, the Conestoga Parkway, or the E.C. Row Expressway. The only highway officially labelled as a freeway is the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway, usually known as Highway 401, or simply "the 401", which is North America's busiest freeway, as well as one of the widest in the world at 18 through lanes in the section passing through Toronto. The Queen Elizabeth Way was the first intercity divided highway in North America. Nearly all highways in Ontario use parclo interchanges, which were developed by the province. Parclos are used to avoid weaving and to maximize efficiency and safety.
* In Quebec, major highways are called ''autoroutes'' in French, and ''expressways'' or ''autoroutes'' in English.
* Nova Scotia numbers its highways by the trunk routes they parallel. For example, Highway 107 parallels Trunk 7. This, to a lesser extent, also applies in Ontario (e.g. Highway 410 and Highway 420 parallel Highway 10 and Highway 20.) Nova Scotia also numbers its highways according to usage: main arterial highways are in the 100s, secondary or old arterial highways are numbered in the double digits from 1 to 28, and collector roads are numbered in the triple digits starting at 200.
* The Trans-Canada Highway (or Trans-Canada) is a highway that crosses all of Canada from east to west and enters all ten provinces. The Trans-Canada ranges from a two-lane highway as it runs through the mountains of British Columbia with occasional divided highway status as the Province commits to twinning the road, a full divided highway with some sections qualifying as freeway status throughout Alberta and Saskatchewan, a mixture of both throughout Manitoba, a two-lane at-grade highway again as it passes through the sparsely populated areas of northern Ontario, and a multi-lane freeway as it travels through southern Ontario, southern Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. There are three or more ferry routes along the Trans-Canada, which allows it to connect to Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Haida Gwaii, and Vancouver Island. The Confederation Bridge provides an alternative route from New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island.

Since the Trans-Canada Highway is not yet a divided, multi-lane freeway for its entire length, the section that crosses the western provinces and northern Ontario is considered to be more of an equivalent to the U.S. Route highway network in the neighboring United States. Southern Ontario's 400-series freeways, Quebec's autoroutes, New Brunswick's portion of the Trans-Canada, Nova Scotia's 100-series highways, Alberta's Ring Road system, and Saskatchewan's Ring Road system are provincial equivalents to the American Interstate Highway System. The Canadian freeways interconnect with each other across provincial lines, and also with the American Interstate system. For example, freeways in Québec connect Montreal with the American border, and thence Interstate 87 continues from there to New York City, and likewise, Toronto is connected to the border by Ontario freeways, and thence by Interstate 190 to Buffalo, New York.

Chile

Chile has significant highway coverage connecting the whole country, with the exception of the Magallanes region.

China, People's Republic of

''Highways'' in China, more often than not, refer to China National Highways. The fully controlled-access, multi-lane, divided routes are instead called expressways. , there were of highways and of expressways in China; both total lengths are the longest in the world.

In Mainland China, private companies reimbursed through tolls are the primary means of creating and financing the National Trunk Highway System (NTHS).

Expressways are lumped with first-grade G-prefixed (, or 'national highway') or A-prefixed first-grade expressways in major municipal cities. All roads in the NTHS and most A-prefixed roads are expressways.
* M-prefix: National (Trunk) Expressways (planned)
* G-prefix: National highways (typically expressways)
* A-prefix: Municipal highways (typically expressways)
* S-prefix: Provincial highways
* X-prefix: County highways
* Y-prefix: Rural roads
* Z-prefix: Special use roads (e.g., airport expressways)

Some highways are numbered with a leading zero (e.g. G030).

The term ''freeway'' during the 1990s was used on a few expressways (such as the Jingshi Freeway). The term ''freeway'' has since been replaced with ''expressway'' on all signs in China. The Chinese name for expressways is ; in pinyin, it is , which literally means 'high-speed public road'.

Signs on the National Highways (G-prefix) are green, while those on the lower-grade highways and urban expressways (A-prefix) are blue.

Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, the type of high speed roads is referred to as ''expressway'', but some are referred to as ''highways'' or ''roads'' ('Yuen Long Highway', 'Tolo Highway', 'Tsuen Wan Road', 'Tuen Mun Road', etc.). Others are named ''corridors'' and ''bypasses''.

Colombia

In Colombia, highways are managed by the Colombian Ministry of Transport through the National Institute of Roads. Colombia's road infrastructure is still very underdeveloped with most of the highways presenting a two-lane road for outbound and inbound traffic. Some exceptions are the Autopista Norte, linking Bogota and the towns of Tunja and Sogamoso and the Highways of the Valle del Cauca, an infrastructure improvement project started about a decade ago which has not yet been entirely finished. Several dual-carriage ways also link cities like Medellin, Pereira, Manizales and Armenia.

Nowadays, direct public funding of highways is increasing, focused mostly on connecting Colombia's agricultural and industrial heartland with its Caribbean and Pacific ports through twinning existing roads and the construction of of roads.

The most important projects under negotiation or construction are La Ruta del Sol (the Sun Road), a four-lane highway between Bogota and the Caribbean coast; and the Highway between Bogota and Buenaventura (Colombia's largest and busiest port) which includes a tunnel.

Croatia

Croatia has 11 highways and 13 expressways. The earliest highway in Croatia was built in 1971. The word ''highway'' is a common Croatian translation of the term ''autocesta'', which describes a toll highway similar to a freeway or an Autobahn.

Czechia

Czechia has 17 motorways. The construction of the earliest Czech highway ( D1) between Prague and Brno was initiated in 1939, but was twice interrupted and reached Brno only in 1980. The word ''highway'' is a common Czech translation of the term '' dálnice'', which describes a toll highway similar to a freeway or an Autobahn.

Denmark

With the completion of the extremely long highway bridge tunnels of the Great Belt Fixed Link in 1998 and Øresund Bridge in 2000, continental Europe was finally connected by road and rail with capital city Copenhagen and Sweden. This includes the Swedish highway and railroad system. The bridge tunnels are all interconnected with major Danish highways and complete a continuous international road connection from northern Sweden to Gibraltar at the southern edge of Spain and Messina, Italy, at the southern tip of the Italian "boot".

The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link has commenced construction in 2017, planning to link Zealand (with Copenhagen) to northern Germany by 2028.

Finland

The national highways in Finland are numbered 1–29 and are in total long. The numbering system originated in 1938. There are motorways for around the largest cities, especially in the south near the capital of Helsinki. Highways numbered 1–6 are the main connection roads in Finland.

France

France has a national highway system dating back to Louis XV (see Corps of ''Ponts et Chaussées''). The constructed at this time, radiating out from Paris, form the basis for the (RN), whose red numbers differ from the yellow numbering used for secondary . The RNs numbered from 1 to 20 radiate from Paris to major ports or border crossings. More recently, after the Second World War, France has constructed Autoroutes, ex. A6-A7, which is called , superhighways (usually toll roads) with a speed limit of ( in rainy conditions or urban areas). Those autoroutes made some parts of the (RN) secondary ().

Germany

Aside from highways bearing the designation ''Autobahn'', Germany has many two- and four-lane roads. Federal highways not known as are called () and, while usually two-lane roads, they may also be four-lane, limited-access expressways of local or regional importance. Unlike the , though, (marked by black numbers on a yellow background) mostly have speed limits (usually , but occasionally higher on limited-access segments, and lower in urban areas or near intersections).

Greece

Hungary

Hungary has seven major motorways ():
* M0 is a quasi-circular highway for the traffic bypassing Budapest. It is divided in four sectors: Southern (links motorways M1, M7, M6 and M5), South-eastern (links Motorway M5 and Main Road no. 4), Eastern (links Main Road no. 4 and Motorway M3), Northern (links Main Road no. 2 with the Megyeri Bridge) and Western (to be finished in 2015; will link main roads 11, 11 and Motorway M1). The total length will be around .
* M1: links Budapest and the north-western border with Austria (Hegyeshalom), then continues its way toward Vienna. The total length is around .
* M3: links Budapest and the north-eastern city of Miskolc (M30 branch), and the eastern cities of Nyíregyháza (M3) and Debrecen (M35 branch). It provides links toward Slovakia, Ukraine and Romania. It has a total length of around 250 km.
* M5: links Budapest and the southern city of Szeged, then the Serbian border (Röszke). It provides a connection to Southern Europe by route E75 and also links to route 68 in Romania. M5 motorway has a length of around .
* M7: links Budapest and the southern shore of Lake Balaton, then continues its way toward Croatia and Slovenia. Its length is about
* M6: links Budapest and Dunaújváros, now extended to the southern city of Pécs. The original length was around .

Also, there are other smaller motorway sections that will be linked to the national motorway network in the future. Motorways usually have two traffic lanes and an emergency lane in each direction, divided by a green zone and metallic rail. The speed limit is .

Expressways usually have no dividing lane in the middle, but sometimes have a metallic rail. The number of lanes is one per direction, with sections of 1+2 lanes (for easier overtaking). The speed limit is . Motorways and expressways cannot be used by vehicles that are not able to reach . There is a toll on all motorways, except M0. Trucks and buses have a separate toll system.

Those who wish to travel on these roads have to buy a sticker. Controversially, there is no option to buy a one-day or one-time pass for passenger cars.

Main roads usually have one lane per direction, no dividing rail. The speed limit is .

County roads have less traffic than main roads; the speed limit is .

India

In India, ''highway'' refers to one of the many National Highways and State Highways that run up to a total length of over consisting mostly of two-lane paved roads, changing into higher lanes mostly around cities. National Highways are designated NH followed by a number.
As of 2009, the major cities in India – Ahmedabad, Pune, Jaipur, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Visakhapatnam, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, and Delhi – are connected by the Golden Quadrilateral or North-South and East-West Corridor, consisting of four- to six-lane roads. Other major cities are connected to it by the National Highways.

An ''expressway'' refers to any access controlled road with grade-separated intersections and make up a very small portion of India's highway network, at about in length. Expressways are separate from the highway network, except for the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, which is part of NH 8. Agra-Lucknow Expressway is the longest expressway in India, more than , after its inauguration on 21 November 2016 replacing Yamuna Expressway (), with a cost of ₹150 billion (US$2.2 billion).

Indonesia

The Indonesian national route system exists solely on Java. The tolled expressways built parallel to the national route, for example, the Jakarta-Merak Toll Road that parallels National Highway 1 from Merak Harbour to Jakarta. Urban expressways are also built, for example Jakarta's Inner and Outer

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