Q.Is the Keinawa Expressway fully connected yet?
Published 2026-06-19
Answer
Not yet. The roughly 120 km Keinawa Expressway linking Kyoto, Nara and Wakayama is about 70% open, but two missing links remain inside Nara Prefecture. The hardest is near Nara City — to protect the wooden tablets buried beneath the World Heritage Heijō Palace Site, the road is to be bored as a shield tunnel below the archaeological layer.
A ~120 km artery linking Kyoto, Nara and Wakayama
The Keinawa Expressway is a roughly 120 km trunk road running from Jōyō City in Kyoto, down through Nara Prefecture, to Wakayama City (a National Route 24 motorway, numbered E24). As part of the Kinki region's ring road, it links the hub cities of three prefectures and supports tourism by cutting travel time. About 70% of it is already open.
120km — total length of the Keinawa Expressway
3prefectures it runs through (Kyoto, Nara, Wakayama)
~70%of the route already open
Two missing links remain in Nara
The two unfinished stretches are both inside Nara Prefecture: the Yamato-Kita Road near Nara City (Nara-kita IC to Kōriyama Shimotsumichi JCT, about 12.4 km) and part of the Yamato-Gose Road in Kashihara (Kashihara-kita IC to Kashihara-Takada IC, about 4.4 km). On the Kashihara side, the Osaka-bound ramp at Kashihara JCT is due to open in March 2026, but no date has yet been given for the full route.
| Missing link | Length | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Yamato-Kita Road (Nara-kita IC – Kōriyama Shimotsumichi JCT) | approx. 12.4 km | The hardest stretch; partly a shield tunnel |
| Yamato-Gose Road (Kashihara-kita IC – Kashihara-Takada IC) | approx. 4.4 km | Kashihara JCT Osaka-bound ramp due March 2026 |
Only in Nara — tunneling underground to protect the ruins
The toughest part is near Nara City. The Yamato-Kita Road was originally planned to tunnel directly beneath the World Heritage Heijō Palace Site, but concern that it would affect the wooden tablets and other buried heritage preserved by the groundwater led to a 2005 reroute, shifting the line about 1 km east of the palace site. Even so, the Nara-kita IC to Nara IC section (6.1 km) is a shield tunnel running below the archaeological layer, bored while monitoring groundwater so as not to disturb it. It is uniquely Nara: an expressway and 1,300-year-old ruins contending underground.
6.1km — shield-tunnel section avoiding the palace site
~1km — the route was shifted east of the palace site
2005year the route was revised
The last piece for a prefecture thin on expressways
Nara's north–south expressway capacity is concentrated almost entirely in the Keinawa, and its construction has long lagged. That is exactly why full opening would matter so much: easing congestion on National Route 24, improving access toward Kyoto and Wakayama, and reaching the prefecture's south — southern Yamato and Yoshino. Once complete, it could redraw a Nara tourism map that has been train-centric and concentrated in the north. Start with the datasets below to see Nara's access and visitor picture today.