List of National Roads in Belgium

The N227 in Belgium

The national roads are roads which cover the whole of Belgium, sometimes they are provincial and communal roads. The use of the national roads is free; they are open to all vehicles, but some are for cars only.

Since the second State reform, the network of national roads are managed by the Federal regions, depending on which region they are located.

In general the road names are linked to the sounding areas; most of these are linked to historical references. For example, the N3 around Liège is known as the "Road to Brussels" on the west of the City and the "Road to Fléron in the east of the City. Another example is around Brussels, where the N2 is known as the "Road to Leuven" / "Chaussée de Louvain" in French / "Leuvensesteenweg" in Dutch.

The numbering of the roads can be grouped in 4 networks of roads:

• The roads N1 to N9 are large connections, starting from Brussels to the borders of the country in each direction. These roads are numbered clockwise.
• In between are roads with number N10, N20, N30, ..., which are short connections between two N roads of the first network and located in different provinces.
• There are other important roads having N11, N12, ... until N99.
• At last there are local N roads with three digits.

The roads of the third and fourth network have almost always a first digit that identifies the province: N1xx for Antwerp, N2xx for ex Brabant, N3xx for West Flanders, N4xx for East Flanders, N5xx for Hainaut, N6xx for Liège, N7xx for Limburg, N8xx for Luxemburg and N9xx for Namur. This first digit corresponds with the NIS code of the provinces.

Some short roads have the number of another N road suffixed with an alphabetic letter. These are usually a short road connecting to a N road, a part of that N road, or an alternative way of that N road.

First network

The first network consists of national roads, each starting from the capital Brussels and forming a clockwise star.

Second network

The second network groups the national roads that are linked to major cities and towns of Belgium, excluding Brussels.

Third network

The third network is composed of provincial national roads. The first digit corresponds to a province : from 1 to 9, based upon the old provinces and in alphabetical order in French.

(*) Due to linguistic differences, the national road N58 took more than 20 years to build. Even the road does not join directly the town of Dottignies as foreseen, but the road is made up of two parts. One part from Armentières (France) to complete the motorway A19 in the Menin territory, the other part from Dottignies and stops in the village of Dronkaard

Fourth network

The fourth network consists of national secondary roads. The first digit corresponds to the province, as for the third network