for: Slidewalk

The term expressway is currently used in Australia, Canada, China, India, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States (where the term originated).Fact: date=February 2007

United States

This distinction was first developed in 1949 by the Special Committee on Nomenclature of what is now the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). In turn, the definitions were incorporated into AASHTO's official standards book, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which would become the national standards book of the U.S. Department of Transportation under a 1966 federal statute. The same distinction has also been codified into the statutory law of seven states: California, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. However, each state codified the federal distinction slightly differently. California expressways do not necessarily have to be divided, though they must have at least partial access control. For both terms to apply, in Wisconsin, a divided highway must be at least four lanes wide; in Missouri, both terms apply only to divided highways at least 10 miles long that are not part of the Interstate Highway System. In North Dakota and Mississippi, an expressway may have "full or partial" access control and "generally" has grade separations at intersections; a freeway is then defined as an expressway with full access control. Ohio's statute is similar, but instead of the vague word "generally," it imposes a requirement that 50% of an expressway's intersections must be grade-separated for the term to apply.

However, many states around the Great Lakes region and along the Eastern Seaboard have refused to conform their terminology to the federal definition. The following states officially prefer the term expressway instead of freeway to describe what are technically freeways in federal parlance: Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana,Fact: date=February 2007 Maryland, Massachusetts,Fact: date=February 2007 New Jersey,Fact: date=February 2007 New York,Fact: date=February 2007 Pennsylvania,Fact: date=February 2007 South Carolina,Fact: date=February 2007 Virginia,Fact: date=February 2007 and West Virginia. In those states, the term freeway is not in common usageFact: date=September 2008 and it is common to find Interstate highways which bear the name “expressway.” Minnesota officially uses "freeway" and "expressway" interchangeably (with both defined as what federal officials call freeways).