China National Highway 209

alt=National Highway 209 shield
National Highway 209
209国道
Route information
Length3,435 km (2,134 mi)
Major junctions
FromSonid Left Banner, Inner Mongolia
ToBeihai, Guangxi
Location
CountryChina
Highway system
G208 G210
Highway 209 climbing from the Liangtai River valley (Gaoqiao town) toward Wanchaoshan Mt (Wujiaping), in Xingshan County, Hubei

China National Highway 209 (G209) runs from Sonid Left Banner, Inner Mongolia to Beihai, Guangxi province. It is 3,435 kilometres in length and runs south from Huhhot towards Shanxi province, Henan province, Hubei province, Hunan province, and ends in Guangxi province.

Despite the "National Highway" designation, G209 is not of uniform quality throughout its length.[1] For example, as of 2009, the 20-kilometer section north of Badong is nothing but a very poor dirt road. Nonetheless, even that section is of importance for the national highway system: it is used e.g. by long-distance buses plying the route between Badong and points east. Many parts of the Muyu to Hongping section (in Hubei's Shennongjia Forestry District) are not much better. On the other hand, the section from the Shennongjia National Park entry to Muyu to Baishahe Village (in Nanyang Town, Xingshan County) is part of a recently upgraded Yichang-Shennongjia Highway.

  1. ^ See e.g. the characterization of the China National Highway 318 and China National Highway 209 as "unstable and unsafe" in: Yichang-Wanzhou Railway (SEIA) Archived 2009-08-07 at the Wayback Machine (Asian Development Bank, June 2003), p.6