The Economic Survey 2022-23 released by the Ministry of Finance (Nepal), shows that until mid-March of 2023, the country had total road network of national roads length 34,100 km. This included national highway and other Strategic roads[1]
National Highways are administered by the Department of Roads under the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport (Nepal).
According to the Statistics of National Highway SNH-2020/21 there are 80 National Highways in Nepal, with a total length of 11178.92 km.[2] 621 km (385.87 mi) more added to National Highway System in 2022/23. Now the total length of the national highway is 11,799.09 km (7,331.61 mi)[3]
There were only 21 National Highways in Nepal before 2021. In 2021, 59 more National highways were announced by the government and corrected the highway numbers.[4][2]
List of National Highways
Strategic Road (1970-2020)
The first Nepal Road Standard introduced by the Department of roads in 1970, classified roads into 4 types.[5] In the second Nepal Road Standard introduced in 2013, the types of the roads were the same.[6]
Nepal Road Standard (1970)
Nepal Road Standard (2013)
National Highway
National Highway
Feeder Road
Feeder Road
District/Panchayat Road
District Road
City Road/Street
Urban Road
SSRN 2004 published by the Department of roads in 2004 shows 12 National Highways and 51 Feeder roads in Nepal.[7] The SSRN 2017/18 shows that the number of national highways in the country has increased to 18 but the number of feeder roads has decreased. 3 more Highways added to National Highway later and more feeder road decreased. In 2021 SNH 2020/21 released by government shows all the previous feeder road either converted to new National Highways or cancelled the status of feeder roads and handed over to provincial governments.
There are seven provinces in Nepal which have many provincial highways and provincial roads which are marked by province's government. Provincial highways or roads are marked as below:
Election Constituency Strategic Road is a strategic road that connects each Constitutional area with a National Highway passing nearby. There are 165 Election Constituency Strategic Road in Nepal.
Urban/rural roads
Urban/Rural roads are the roads that are administered by local government e.g. Municipality and Rural Municipality. The road codes of the Local roads are coded as follows:
Urban/Rural road of a Municipality in Bagmati Province = BUR00
Urban/Rural road of a Municipality in Koshi Province = KUR00