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The national roads of Belgium are roads that cover the whole of the country; some of the roads are provincial and communal. 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 in 1980, the networks of national roads have been managed by the federal regions, depending on the region in which they are located.
In general the road names are linked to the surrounding areas; most of these are linked to historical references. For example, the N3 around Liège is known as the "Road to Brussels" in 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 is grouped into four 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 numbers N10, N20, N30, etc., which are short connections between two N roads of the first network and located in different provinces.
There are other important roads having numbers N11, N12, etc., up to N99.
Lastly, there are local N roads with three digits.
Most of the roads of the third and fourth networks have 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 a letter of the alphabet. These are usually a short road connecting to an N road, a part of that N road, or a road that can be taken as an alternative to that N road.
†Due to linguistic differences, the national road N58 took more than twenty years to build. It does not actually run from Dottignies to Armentières as anticipated because the road is split into two sections: the first stretches from Armentières in France up to Menen where it joins onto the A19 motorway; the other part starts in the village of Dronkaard to the southeast of Menen, and ends in the village of Dottignies.
