National Route 45 (国道45号) is a national highway of Japan connecting Aoba-ku, Sendai and Aomori, Aomori. Alongside Japan National Route 6, it is a main route along the Pacific coast of eastern Japan. It is paralleled closely by the incomplete Sanriku Expressway between Sendai and Hachinohe.

Route description

National Route 45 has a total length of 516.9 km. The northernmost 76.1 km of the highway between its northern terminus in central Aomori and Japan National Route 102 in Towada, Aomori is a concurrency with Japan National Route 4 where Route 45 is not signed until it diverges from Route 4. From there it independently begins heading southeast towards the coastal cities of Hachinohe, Kuji, Miyako, Kamaishi, Kesennuma, and Ishinomaki on the way to its southern terminus in Sendai.

History

Route 45 was originally designated on 18 May 1953 as second-class routes 102 and 111 connecting Hirosaki to Hachinohe and Hachinohe to Sendai, respectively. On 1 April 1963, Route 102 was truncated to its current route with the section between Towada and Hachinohe incorporated into the newly formed first-class Route 45 along with the entirety of Route 111. Many sections of the highway along the Sanriku Coast were inundated, destroyed, or swept away by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami event.

List of major junctions

Japan National Route 111

National Route 111 (国道111号) is a former second-class national highway of Japan that ran north to south from Sendai to Hachinohe. It existed from 1953 to 1963, when it was incorporated into the newly formed and longer first-class Route 45.