In 1949, the length of highways in China was just over 80,000 km, and more than one third of the counties nationwide were not accessible by road. However, by 1999, the total length of highways opened to traffic had reached 1.352 million km. Now, all counties, towns and townships are accessible by road. After 1978, China began to build a large number of major expressways, including the Shenyang-Dalian, Beijing-Tianjin-Tanggu, Guangzhou-Shenzhen, Jinan-Qingdao, Chengdu-Chongqing, Yichang-Huangshi, Beijing-Shijiazhuang, Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan, Shanghai-Ningbo and Taiyuan-Jiuguan expressways. In 1999, there were 58,000 km of newly built highways, 2,825 km of which were expressways.