By the end of 2002, China's national highways covered a distance of 1.765 million kilometers. Through a structural adjustment of the second general investigation of highways in 2002, the mileage of national highways had reached 125,000 kilometers, provincial highways 216,000 kilometers, county highways471,000 kilometers, rural highways 866,000 kilometers and highways for special purposes 87,000 kilometers.

Divided by the highway technical grade, the total distance of highways over all grades is: 25,130 kilometers of super highway, 27,468 kilometers of 1st-grade highway, 197,143 kilometers of 2nd-grade highway, 315,141 kilometers of 3rd-grade highway, 818,044 kilometers of 4th-grade highway and 382,296 kilometers of under-grade highway. The mileage of up-to-grade highways reached 1,382,900 kilometers and accounted for 78.3% of the total mileage, with an increase of 0.4% since 2001. The mileage of 2nd grade and above highways had reached 249,700 miles and accounted for14.1% of the total mileage with an increase of 0.7% since 2001. Divided by the road surface grade, the mileage of all grades is: 288,644 kilometers of top-grade road surface, 433,244 kilometers of 2nd-grade road surface, 437,581 kilometers of medium-grade road surface, and 442,321 kilometers of under-grade road surface. The mileage of the up-to-grade road surfaces had reached 1,601,800 kilometers and accounted for 90.7% total highway mileage with an increase of 0.2% over the year before. The mileage of top and 2nd-grade road surfaces had reached 721,900 kilometers and accounted for 40.9% of total highway mileage with an increase of 1.3%.

Provinces with over 1,000 kilometers of super highway reached 10, including: Shandong (2,411 kilometers), Hebei (1,591 kilometers), Guangdong (1,741 kilometers), Jiangsu (1,704 kilometers), Sichuan (1,501 kilometers), Henan (1,231 kilometers), Liaoning (1,637 kilometers), Zhejiang (1,307 kilometers), Shanxi (1,070 kilometers) and Hunan (1,012 kilometers).

The mileage of county and rural highways had reached 1,336,900 kilometers by the end of 2002, with an increase of 59,500 kilometers over the year before. The density of highways nationwide was 18.4 kilometers per 100 square kilometers (km/100sq.km) with an increase of 0.7 km/100sq.km since 2001. 99.5% of counties (towns) had access to highways - an increase of 0.2% since 2001. 92.3% of administrative villages had access to highways - an increase of 0.5% since 2001.

The mileage of highways in the eastern region had reached 561,200 kilometers by the end of 2002, whilst the central region reached 607,300 kilometers and the western region 596,800 kilometers, accounting for 31.8%, 34.4% and 33.8% respectively. The second and above grade highways in the western region were 122,000 kilometers and its density was 43.2 km/100sq.km, those in the central region were 83,500 kilometers and 21.3km/100sq.km, and those in the western region were 44,200 kilometers and 10.9 Km/100sq.km.

Highway maintenance covered an area of 1,661,000 kilometers by the end of 2002 and accounted for 94.1% of the total mileage of highways. Afforested areas alongside highways covered an area of 940,000 kilometers and 53.2% of total mileage of highways.

Remarks1. All data is official statistics data2. The data excludes Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions and Taiwan Province