French A roads, Spanish E- roads, Dutch E roads and German roads

Question

Looking at Google Maps, I noticed that France uses "A" to designate roads, with the occasional "E", Spain uses "E-" and "AP-", the Netherlands uses a mixture of "A" and "E" and Germany simply uses numbers. Denmark seems to use a mixture of numbers and "E". Portugal is the same as the Netherlands with a mixture of "A" and "E".

Is there a continent / EU wide road system, or do the roads simply change markings as one crosses the border?

Answer 1

Yes, there is such a system. The roads marked with a green label and letter E are marked in accordance with this system: E47 on the Denmark map is the European route 47, E1 on the Portugal map is the European route 1.

Quotation from WIkipedia:

In most countries, roads carry the European route designation beside national road numbers. Other countries like Belgium, Norway and Sweden have roads with exclusive European route signage (Examples: E 18 and E 6), while at the other end of the scale, British road signs do not show the routes at all. Denmark uses exclusive European routes, but uses also formal names for every motorway (or part of such), which the motorways are referred to, for instance in news and weather forecasts.

This is the map these international roads:

All other names (not green) are national, and these roads may or may not be part of European routes. For example, 10 on the German map is A10 is Bundesautobahn 10, different parts of which belong to E26, E30, E51 and E55.

Here is a nice example of three diferent name systems for one road: Dutch A77 becomes A57 in Germany but still remains E31:

PS. Germany does not "simply use" numbers. It's Google Maps who simply uses numbers for German roads. Every German road has a letter in its name: A for Autobahn, B for Bundesstraße (federal highway), L for Landesstraße (regional/state road) and K for Kreisstraße (district/county road).

Answer 2

Neusser gave a nice explanation about the European routes. As for the others: Yes, markings change at the border. Here's an example of the German-Austrian border near my place:

I picked this one because I definitely know that the motorway is not interrupted in any way, but I'm pretty sure it's the same all over Europe.

Answer 3

In France, road are usually named following the pattern LetterNumber. The number starts at 1, and the letter depends on the type of road.

• 'A' is for "Autoroute", "Highway" in french, high-speed roads, usually having a speed limit set to 130 km/h
• 'N' is for "Nationale", these are roads crossing multiple Regions, usually 90 ou 110 km/h
• 'D' is for "Départementale", for small roads, usually between 2 cities or towns, with a speed limit set to 90km/h or lower.