Originally Answered: Does China have high ways?
I donno why China still leaves the impression of 1900 to (some parts of ) the world, having held the exceptional Beijing Olympic Games and Shanghai EXPO. True, there is still enormous space for China to improve, especially in rural areas, but asking a question like this is almost insulting considering China has the second largest highway system in the world(some documents says China has the longest one but it seems that they just include interstate highways so I will still put USA in the first place.) I donno if this is out of curiosity or something, I will still show you some pictures of highways around different parts of China which represents totally different landscape to correct the stereotype thinking you may have.
First, the highway in what I called “Great smoky mountain of China” in Shaanxi province
And here are some top 10 bridges in height(to the ground)
This one is at Enshi, Hubei.
This one is at guizhou
Preety amazing huh? It’s only two of them.
And here we go to the eastern part of China(economically advanced region)
I would stop here for if I do not stop there will just be too much. Hope this clears some of your previous impressions of highway in China(and the answer for your question is Yes, we do have highways).
Yes it does, no matter what “highways” here refers to. China’s road system is pretty much like the road system in the USA. They have a hierarchy like this:
China National Expressway System (equivalent to the Interstate Highway System in the USA)
Chinese National Highways (equivalent to the U.S. Routes)
Provincial-level Road Systems (equivalent to State Routes in the USA)
County-level Roads (equivalent to County Routes in the USA)
Township-level Roads (equivalent to city roads in the USA)
Village-level Roads
Special Roads (equivalent to Service Roads in the USA)
The 1st-tier roads in China are mostly expressways (or highways), while most roads in the 2nd tier and some in the 3rd tier are also expressways.
The China National Expressway System surpassed the Interstate system in the USA in the total length in 2011, which means it is currently the no.1 highway system in the world in terms of total length. As of 2015, the total length of China National Expressway System is somewhere around 123,000 km (whereas the Interstate system of USA is 77,000 km).
Here is a map showing China National Expressway System:
The Chinese National Highways (tier-2) system has a total length of about 265,000 km, which is very close to the total length of U.S. Route system (253,832 km).
Those roads covered every province and most prefecture-level cities of China. They are built in all sorts of landforms (some of them are gorgeous). For example (images from various public websites):
Airport expressway in Beijing.
A highway interchange in Chongqing.
Beijing-Kunming expressway, Sichuan section.
An expressway bridge in western Hubei province.
Qinghai-Tibet route on the plateau.
The desert highway in Tarim Basin of Xinjiang.
Jiaozhou Bay Bridge in Shandong province.
So you should know by now that China’s highway system is as good as the USA’s, and it is much newer