Highways numbered from 1 to 7 radiate from the capital Helsinki (Highways 2, 5 and 6 diverge from 1, 4 and 7, respectively), while highways 8 to 10 radiate from Turku on the south-western coast of Finland. Highways 11 and 12 originate in Tampere. The rest of the highways start from other major cities.
Sections of highways between major cities have often been upgraded to motorways, for example between Helsinki and Tampere. Since Finland is a large and sparsely populated country, there is no reason to upgrade all highways to motorways.
The motorway network totals 926 kilometres (575 mi). In addition to that, there are 124 kilometres (77 mi) of motortrafficways, which are reserved only for motor traffic.[1]
^Finnish Road Statistics 2010. Statistics from the Finnish Transport Agency 6/2011 (ISSN-L 1798-811X). Helsinki: Finnish Transport Agency (FTA). 2011. pp. 23, 49. ISBN978-952-255-699-8. Archived from the original(PDF) on 9 October 2015. Retrieved 7 August 2011.