Highway
Topic: World Transport and Communication · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 7 "Transport and Communication"
Meaning
A highway is a metalled road that links places far apart. Metalled means it has a hard surface such as stone, bitumen or concrete. A highway is built so that traffic can keep moving without stopping. It has separate lanes, bridges, flyovers and dual carriageways (two roads side by side, each carrying traffic one way). NCERT gives its width as 80 m. North America has about 0.65 km of highway per sq km, and every place there is within 20 km of a highway.
Example
India's Golden Quadrilateral is a set of highways linking Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, the four largest metro cities, for fast long-distance road traffic.
Don't confuse with
- Motorway: a fast road with controlled access, so vehicles can join or leave only at fixed points. Examples are Germany's autobahns and the USA's inter-state highways.
- Border road: a road built along an international border. Its main job is to supply border villages and army camps, not to carry fast long-distance traffic.
Related concepts
- Trans-Canada Highway
- Alaska Highway
- Pan-American Highway
- Stuart Highway
- Moscow-Vladivostok Highway
- Chengdu-Lhasa Highway
- Cairo-Cape Town Highway