Noun

Singular highway

Plural highways

highway (plural highways)

1. A main, direct public road, especially a multi-lane, high speed thoroughfare connecting major population centers.

Hyponyms

• motorway
• expressway

A highway is a main road for travel by the public between important destinations, such as cities, large towns, and states. Highway designs vary widely and can range from a two-lane road without margins to a multi-lane, grade-separated expressway, freeway, or motorway. In English, British, and American law, the word "highway" is sometimes used to denote any public way used for travel, whether major highway, freeway, street, lane, alley, pathway, dirt track, footpaths, and trails, and navigable waterways. However, in practical and useful meaning, a "highway" is a major and significant, well-constucted road that is capable of carrying reasonably-heavy to extremely-heavy traffic. Examples of these in North America include the U.S. Highways, the Trans-Canada Highway, the Interstate Highways, State Highways, and Canadian Provincial Highways. Any interconnected set of highways can be variously referred to as a "highway system", a "highway network", or a "highway transportation system".

The United States has the world's largest network of highways, including both the Interstate Highway System and the U.S. Highway System. At least one of these networks is present in every state and they interconnect most major cities.

China's highway network is the second most extensive in the world, with a total length of about 3,573 million km. China's expressway network is also the second longest in the world, and it is quickly expanding, stretching some 60,300 km at the end of 2008, In 2008 alone, 6,433 km expressways were added to the network.

In the United Kingdom, the term "highway" is ambiguous and not in common use, usually reserved for historic or legal use (see public highway). The terms main road and motorway are more common. Any classification of a road as a "highway" there, and therefore any statistics about the total length of a highway network there, is purely subjective.

Some highways, like the Pan-American Highway or the European routes, span multiple countries. Australia's Highway 1 is the longest national highway in the world at over 20,000 km (12,000 mi) and runs almost the entire way around the continent.

Highways are not always continuous stretches of pavement. For example, some highways are interrupted by bodies of water, and ferry routes may serve as sections of the highway. An example of this is U.S. Route 10, which crosses Lake Michigan via ferryboat.