# How many miles of paved road are in the US?  World?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-miles-of-paved-road-are-in-the-us-world/115479>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 22, 2002, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-miles-of-paved-road-are-in-the-us-world/115479 "2002-06-22T19:36:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Chekmate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/46a35a/32.png) [@Chekmate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chekmate)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-miles-of-paved-road-are-in-the-us-world/115479/1 "2002-06-22T19:36:31Z")

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I was driving to my Dad’s the other day, and I got to thinking, how many miles of paved road are there in the United States? How much is that in comparison to the rest of the world?

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**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-miles-of-paved-road-are-in-the-us-world/115479/2 "2002-06-22T19:49:31Z")

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I have heard important people say in the past that if UK roads were straightened into one - it would go round the world about 20 times.

So to use an already very vague estimate as a guide to estimate another country - I’d say American roads would go round the world 200 times.

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**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-miles-of-paved-road-are-in-the-us-world/115479/3 "2002-06-22T20:27:40Z")

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Per the _World Factbook 2001_, published by the CIA, the United States has 3,732,757 km of paved highways (total: 6,348,227). The figure for the world is listed as “NA,” which I assume (but haven’t checked) is due to the fact that some countries must individually be “not available.”

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**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-miles-of-paved-road-are-in-the-us-world/115479/4 "2002-06-22T20:35:24Z")

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Sorry, that should be 2,319,428 miles for U.S. paved highways.

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-miles-of-paved-road-are-in-the-us-world/115479/5 "2002-06-22T22:35:21Z")

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I was watching The History Chennel last night and they had a show on “The Paving of America”. In a pre-commercial blurb they said “There are 4 million miles of road in the United States – half of which are paved.” So that jibes with **KneadToKnow** ’s figure.

BTW: They usually play the episodes several times during the week, so you may be able to catch it. (You can tell that I have no life.)