are intra-city expressways which are found in many of Japan's largest

urban area An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, t ...

s. Due to lack of space many of these expressways are constructed as viaducts running above local roads. The two largest networks are the

Shuto Expressway is a network of toll expressways in the Greater Tokyo Area of Japan. It is operated and maintained by the . Most routes are grade-separated (elevated roads or tunnels) and central routes have many sharp curves and multi-lane merges that requi ...

in the

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

area and the

Hanshin Expressway The is a network of expressways surrounding Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto, Japan. Operated by , it opened in 1962. Portions of the Hanshin Expressway about east of Fukae Station collapsed during the Kobe earthquake on 17 January 1995. These section ...

in the

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

area. There are other smaller networks in

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most pop ...

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

Kitakyūshū is a city located in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. As of June 1, 2019, Kitakyushu has an estimated population of 940,978, making it the second-largest city in both Fukuoka Prefecture and the island of Kyushu after the city of Fukuoka. It is one of ...

, and

Fukuoka is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancie ...

. Each network is managed separately from each other (the

and Kitakyūshū Expressways are managed by the same company but are not physically connected to each other). Currently half of the tolled urban expressways operate on a flat-rate toll system (the toll is the same regardless of the distance travelled on the network), however the Shuto Expressway, Hanshin Expressway and Nagoya Expressway have moved to a distance-based toll system for vehicles equipped with ETC. Vehicles travelling on these roads not equipped with ETC, must now pay the maximum toll achievable from the entrance the vehicle enters from.

Urban Expressways in Japan

Tokyo Expressway The , also known as the KK Expressway, is a short (2 km) untolled expressway in central Tokyo owned and maintained by Tokyo Skyway Company (Tōkyō Kōsoku Dōro K.K.). It runs in a semicircular loop around the Ginza district of Chūō-ku. ...

(Interconnected to the Shuto Expressway on both ends. Toll free.) *

Nagoya Expressway The is a network of urban expressways in Japan serving the greater Nagoya area. It is owned and managed by Nagoya Expressway Public Corporation. Overview The first section of the Nagoya Expressway network opened to traffic in 1979. As of 2008, ...

Fukuoka Expressway The owns and maintains the Fukuoka and Kitakyūshū expressways in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. It is headquartered in Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture. The company was established on November 1, 1971 to manage the urban expressways built ...

* Hiroshima Expressway * Kitakyūshū Expressway

References

External links

Official website

全国の高速道路ガイド
�� {{Expressways of Japan Expressways in Japan Lists of roads in Japan