European countries with most motorways

Have you ever wondered which countries have the most kilometers of motorways? Well, Eurostat is going to answer that question. The European Office of Statistics has counted what it classified as motorways, which are roads that meet three criteria:

• Two separated lanes for each direction, except in special points or temporarily due to repairs on their surface, among other circumstances.
• Lanes that are not crossed on the same level by any other road, railway or pedestrian walk.
• The use of special signs to indicate that the road is a motorway and to exclude specific categories of vehicles and/or users.

Well, Europe’s motorway champions are Spain, with 15,444 kilometres; Germany, with 12,996; and France, with 11,612. These three are the only ones with more than 10,000 kilometres of motorways, followed by Italy with 6,943 and the UK with 3,768 km.

Curiously enough Turkey, with the largest surface area in  Europe (783,562 square kilometres, although most of its territory is in Asia) has just 2,542 kilometres of motorways.