The is a national expressway in

Mie Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Mie Prefecture has a population of 1,781,948 () and has a geographic area of . Mie Prefecture is bordered by Gifu Prefecture to the north, Shiga Prefecture an ...

and

Nara Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Nara Prefecture has a population of 1,321,805 and has a geographic area of . Nara Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Osaka Prefecture to the ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. The expressway is also known as the Meihan National Highway that is a literal translation of its Japanese name. Together with the

Nishi-Meihan Expressway is a national expressway in the Kinki region of Japan. It is owned and operated by West Nippon Expressway Company. Naming Meihan is a kanji acronym of two characters. The first character represents Nagoya (名古屋) and the second charact ...

and Higashi-Meihan Expressway, it is the central portion of a corridor linking the greater

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region of Japan. It is the list of cities in Japan, fourth-most populous city in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020, and the principal city of the Chūkyō metropolitan area, which is the List of ...

and

Osaka is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...

areas. It is owned and operated by

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism The , abbreviated MLIT, is a ministry of the Japanese government.国土交通省設置法

and is signed as an auxiliary route of National Route 25 as well as E25 under their "Expressway Numbering System."

Naming

''Meihan'' is a Sino-Japanese pronunciation of two-character

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

for Nagoya and Osaka (名阪). The first character of three-character kanji that represents Nagoya (名古屋) is pronounced as ''mei'', whereas the second character of two-character kanji that represents Osaka (大阪) is pronounced as ''han''.

History

Construction on the Meihan Expressway began in March 1962, with an intended construction period of only one thousand days. The rapid construction of expressways in Japan at the time was spearheaded by Minister of Construction

Ichirō Kōno was a Japanese politician during the Post-war, postwar period who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Japan, Deputy Prime Minister and a member of the National Diet. As Deputy Prime Minister, he was in charge of the 1964 Summer Olympics, 1964 To ...

in preparation for the

1964 Summer Olympics The , officially the and commonly known as Tokyo 1964 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 10 to 24 October 1964 in Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo had been awarded the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this honor was subseq ...

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

. It was opened as a

two-lane expressway A two-lane expressway or two-lane freeway is an limited-access road, expressway or controlled-access highway, freeway with only one lane (road), lane in each direction, and usually no Jersey barrier, median barrier. It may be built that way becau ...

in December 1965.

Interchange list

References

{{Expressways of Japan Expressways in Japan Roads in Nara Prefecture Roads in Mie Prefecture 1962 establishments in Japan