Editing Road hierarchy (section)

== National highway systems ==
In some countries, the controlled-access highways form an expansive system that generally connect distant cities within the country to each other, but there are often more highways that only have local courses designed to improve connections in a smaller region, such as within a metropolitan area. Controlled-access highways are often given numbers to form a national highway system, such as the ''[[Bundesautobahn]]'' in Germany or the [[Interstate Highway System]] in the United States, but note that a national highway system may also consist of other numbered highways that are not implemented as controlled-access highways.

Many countries may have more than one national highway system of a lower rank, such as the [[U.S. Highways]] (not to be confused with the Interstate system), only portions of which run on controlled-access highways. Conversely, there may also be controlled-access highways not part of a numbered system. Highways are usually given icons featuring the number of the highway called [[Highway shield|highway shields or route markers]]. In addition to the national highway system, there may be provincial-level or state-level (US) highway systems of a lower rank, which need not consist mainly of controlled-access highways.