What is the name of longest highway in the world?

Is there anywhere else in the world (apart from China) with as many tunnels and as much total tunnel length on a single length of highway as there is in this place in China?

• The G8011 Mengzi-Hekou expressway is hundreds of kilometers from the nearest major city, Kunming, but it contains what I believe to be one of the world's most impressive collections of tunnels. Over a length of 23.3 kilometers, the G8011 descends 850 meters in elevation into the Red River Valley, passing through 14 tunnels, three of which are over 1000 meters long, and which add up to a total of 10,244 meters of length, making 44% of this stretch of highway tunnels (if the final tunnel is excluded, 9.528 meters of tunnels over 18.9 km of highway calculates to an even high proportion of tunnel at 50%). If you want to examine this stretch of highway for yourself on google earth, then you can check these two sets of coordinates: A) 23°06'39.58" N 103°17'24.93" E B) 22°58'57.66" N 103°24'39.40" E Looking for a counterpart in the United States, I calculated that Interstate 70 passes through a total of 6 tunnels while crossing the Colorado Rockies, for a total of 4,915 meters over 252 km of highway, meaning 0.02% is in tunnels. Clearly, there's no comparison here. Is there anywhere in the world that could match this example I've found from China (excluding other examples in China itself....which are numerous)? What does this say about Chinese engineering and highway development? Why are Chinese highways so much more tunnel-intensive? Is it because the landscape is more mountainous and the tunnels are necessary? Or is it because Chinese engineers are more willing to build a tunnel through a mountain than build around it (if so, this presents an interesting departure from the cultural adage that the Chinese method of dealing with a problem is to go around it rather than straight through it). List of tunnels on 23.3 km of G8011 between 23°06'39.58" N 103°17'24.93" E and 22°58'57.66" N 103°24'39.40" E: 1419 m 1817 m 903 m 208 m 435 m 1343 m 453 m 336 m 178 m 227 m 909 m 320 m 980 m 716 m total 10,244 meters of tunnels over 23,300 meters of highway 44% tunnels Excluding the final tunnel: total 9,528 meters of tunnels over 18,900 meters of highway 50.4% tunnels I-70 through the Colorado Rockies Glenwood Springs to Denver 252 km Eisenhower Tunnel 2700 meters Beavertail Mountain Tunnel 221 meters No Name Tunnel 287 meters Hanging Lake Tunnel 1225 meters Reverse Curve Tunnel 195 meters Twin Tunnels 287 meters total tunnel length in Colorado 4,915 meters 0.02% tunnels

• Answer:

  There's plenty longer tunnels. The Lærdal Tunnel in Norway from Lærdal to Aurland is the world's longest road tunnel, intended for cars and similar vehicles, at 24.5 km (15.2 mi) and the Zhongnanshan Tunnel in People's Republic of China opened in January 2007 is the world's second longest highway tunnel and the longest road tunnel in Asia, at 18 km (11 mi). These are compete tunnels with no gaps. Over the last 30 years, there has a revolution in tunnel building using Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM). Most European and American road networks pre-date this. They were build using explosives - a much longer, dangerous and expensive process. Thus western highways are routed to minimise tunnels; sometimes taking long detours to get a level route or using deep cuttings instead of tunnels. The countries like China have build there road networks in recent decades. There has be a change in the cost of tunneling. Using a TBM you can cut a tunnel faster, cheaper with less workers. This makes routes with many tunnels and less detours more preferable as the cost of the tunnel is now lower than the detour. Thus Chinese roads are being built with many more tunnels than before.