Motorways of Pakistan Motorways of Pakistan Motorways of Pakistan () are a network of multiple-lane, high-speed, controlled-access highways in Pakistan, which are owned, maintained and operated federally by Pakistan's National Highway Authority. 1010 km of motorways are currently operational as of 4 February 2017, while 3690 km are currently under construction. All motorways in Pakistan are pre-fixed with the letter 'M' (for "motorway") followed by the unique numerical designation of the specific highway (with a hyphen in the middle), e.g. "M-1". Pakistan's motorways are part of Pakistan's "National Trade Corridor Project", which aims to link Pakistan's three Arabian Sea ports (Karachi Port, Port
Arabian Sea Aden and thence into the Levant, or south into Alexandria via Red Sea ports such as Axum. Each major route involved transhipping to pack animal caravan, travel through desert country and risk of bandits and extortionate tolls by local potentates. This southern coastal route past the rough country in the southern Arabian Peninsula (Yemen and Oman today) was significant, and the Egyptian Pharaohs built several shallow canals to service the trade, one more or less along the route of today's Suez canal, and another from the Red Sea to the Nile River, both shallow works that were swallowed up by