2 Views 0 Comments Shares

Top 10 Most Unusual Roads in the World

By Dhiraj Sharma · Published November 11, 2026

Listen to this article Free TTS Play using your browser's built-in text-to-speech

Editorial hairpin-road ribbon diagram in switchback ochre and mountain slate, with a generic ribbon and no official signs.

The unusual roads in this list are ranked for odd engineering or setting, not as a rerun of the most beautiful or most dangerous highways. Finepedia already treats those questions separately. A road belongs here if something about its construction or its site is genuinely odd: it vanishes under the tide, it crosses a runway, it is carved through a cliff, or it is a documented corkscrew of hairpins built as a piece of engineering theatre ^[1]^[2].

Rank is editorial. Opening years and crossing rules were checked against official or standard accounts. Several of these roads close in winter, at high tide, or when an aircraft is landing, and those rules are the point of the entry, not a footnote ^[2]^[3].

Key Facts

Scenic quality and accident statistics are not the ranking units. Rank 1 is the outstanding engineered island-hopping road with a firm opening date.

Unusual Roads at a Glance

Rank	Road	Place	Unusual fact	Practical rule
1	Atlantic Ocean Road	Norway	Island-hopping coastal road, opened 7 July 1989	Weather can close sections; it is a public road, not a ride
2	Passage du Gois	France	Tidal causeway to Noirmoutier, covered at high tide	Official crossing times; refuge poles on the route
3	Lindisfarne Causeway	United Kingdom	Tidal causeway to Holy Island	Official safe-crossing times, published daily
4	Winston Churchill Avenue	Gibraltar	A city road that crosses the airport runway	Barriers close the crossing for aircraft; a 2023 tunnel now takes most through traffic
5	Lombard Street, crooked block	United States	Eight tight hairpins on a steep one-way block	A local street with heavy tourist traffic
6	Guoliang Tunnel	China	A road blasted and cut through a cliff by villagers in the 1970s	Narrow, rough, and not a highway standard
7	Eshima Ohashi	Japan	A steep-looking bridge-road between two prefectures, opened 2004	The famous photographs compress the true gradient
8	Tianmen Mountain Road	China	A mountain access road of 99 numbered bends	A managed tourist mountain road, not a shortcut
9	Trollstigen	Norway	Eleven hairpins on a national tourist route	Seasonal; usually closed in winter
10	Iroha-zaka	Japan	A pair of one-way hairpin roads with 48 curves, named for a syllable poem	One road up, one down, in a national-park setting

1. Atlantic Ocean Road

The Atlantic Ocean Road, or Atlanterhavsveien, in More og Romsdal, Norway, is a short coastal route that jumps from island to island on causeways and bridges, of which the Storseisundet Bridge is the most photographed ^[1]. It opened on 7 July 1989 and is part of County Road 64. Storm spray regularly breaks over the deck, which is why the road is unusual as a public highway, not only as a view.

It is first as a completed, dated piece of coastal engineering whose whole point is to run through the sea rather than around it ^[1]. Beauty lists already claim it; this list claims the oddness of the alignment.

It is a working road with buses and local traffic. Stopping in a travel lane for a photograph is not part of the design ^[1].

2. Passage du Gois

The Passage du Gois is a natural tidal causeway, several kilometres long, linking the Ile de Noirmoutier to the French mainland in the Vendee, and it is submerged at high tide ^[2]. Official crossing times are published, and refuge poles stand along the route for anyone caught by the rising water. A road that is a seabed twice a day is an unusual highway, even if the surface itself is ordinary pavement.

It is second because the unusual fact is tidal, not ornamental, and because the crossing rule is official rather than folkloric ^[2]. The causeway has also been used as a race and tourist spectacle, which is a later overlay.

Ignoring the tide table is the only real danger that belongs in this entry. The timetable, not a dare, is the way across ^[2].

3. Lindisfarne Causeway

The Lindisfarne Causeway to Holy Island, in Northumberland, is a modern tidal road with clearly published safe-crossing times, set by the tide, and with warning signs that are easy to underestimate ^[3]. Holy Island is a historic religious site and a village, not a theme park, and the causeway is how most vehicles reach it.

It is third as the British counterpart to the Gois: a documented, official, sometimes-closed public road whose unusual behaviour is the sea ^[3]. People are still occasionally cut off, which is why the official times exist.

The island remains inhabited. The road is a daily practicality as well as a curiosity ^[3].

4. Winston Churchill Avenue, Gibraltar

Winston Churchill Avenue, the main surface road between Gibraltar's town and the frontier with Spain, was long famous for crossing the airport runway at grade, with barriers lowering when an aircraft landed or took off ^[4]. A tunnel under the runway, opened in 2023, now carries most through traffic, so the unusual crossing is no longer the default commute, but the runway road remains a real, visible piece of the territory's geography and can still be closed for aviation ^[4].

It is fourth as one of the oddest urban road alignments in Europe, with a dated change: the 2023 tunnel is part of the 2026 truth, not a reason to pretend the crossing never existed ^[4]. A list that ignored the tunnel would be stale; a list that ignored the runway would be incomplete.

Aircraft have priority. That rule, and not a photograph of a jet over a queue of cars, is the operational fact ^[4].

5. Lombard Street, crooked block

The crooked block of Lombard Street, on Russian Hill in San Francisco, between Hyde and Leavenworth, was rebuilt in the 1920s with eight tight hairpin turns to tame a steep one-way descent, lined with gardens ^[5]. It is a genuine city street that became a tourist queue. The rest of Lombard Street is an ordinary, much longer, city road.

It is fifth as a documented urban corkscrew, unusual for a residential block rather than a mountain pass ^[5]. The design date, in the 1920s, is the engineering fact; the brick and the flowers are later reputation.

Congestion and local restrictions can change from year to year. A downhill walk or a cable-car approach is often saner than driving the block ^[5].

6. Guoliang Tunnel

The Guoliang Tunnel, in the Taihang Mountains of Henan, is a cliff-face road and tunnel cut by villagers in the 1970s, opened in 1977, to connect the village of Guoliang with the network beyond a previously isolated valley ^[6]. Windows opened in the rock wall give the road its corridor look. It is narrow and rough, a local engineering feat rather than a national expressway.

It is sixth as a documented "road almost made by hand" whose unusual setting is a cliff interior, not a scenic overlook added later ^[6]. Official tourism has arrived; the 1970s cut is still the fact.

Large vehicles and wet rock are poor companions. This is not a place to test a timetable ^[6].

7. Eshima Ohashi

Eshima Ohashi, opened in 2004, is a rigid-frame bridge-road linking Matsue in Shimane Prefecture with Sakaiminato in Tottori Prefecture, designed with a steep approach so that shipping could pass beneath a relatively short span ^[7]. Telephoto photographs have made it look like a roller-coaster; the true gradient is far milder than those images suggest, which is itself part of the story of the road.

It is seventh as an unusual bridge-road whose fame is a mix of real engineering and optical exaggeration, and this article keeps the two apart ^[7]. The 2004 opening date is firm.

Drivers on the actual deck meet a demanding but ordinary grade, not a carnival ride. The unusual fact is the design compromise over the waterway ^[7].

8. Tianmen Mountain Road

The road up Tianmen Mountain, in Zhangjiajie, Hunan, is a managed mountain access route famous for a sequence of 99 bends, built to reach a summit area that also has a cave, a cable car and glass walkways ^[8]. The number of bends is the unusual, advertised engineering fact. It is a tourist mountain road, with the controls that implies.

It is eighth as a numbered-hairpin mountain road on a well-documented Chinese tourist mountain, distinct from a through-highway ^[8]. The cable car is an alternative, not a substitute fact about the road.

Weather, ticket systems and one-way controls can change. The official park is the authority ^[8].

9. Trollstigen

Trollstigen, the Troll Path, in More og Romsdal, is a hairpin mountain road of eleven tight bends on a National Tourist Route, with a modern visitor centre and a seasonal opening, typically late spring to autumn, and a winter closure that is itself part of the road's character ^[9]. It is unusual as a fully staged hairpin climb: engineering, waterfall, and official viewpoint in one composition.

It is ninth, and not higher, because neighbouring Norway already leads this list with the Atlantic Ocean Road, and because Trollstigen is closer to the "dramatic mountain road" type from which this article is trying to stay distinct ^[9]. It still belongs, because the hairpin stack is a designed object.

Buses, camper vans and wet stone make the bends serious. The opening date each year is a road-authority decision ^[9].

10. Iroha-zaka

The Iroha-zaka roads in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, are a pair of one-way hairpin routes, one ascending and one descending, with 48 curves traditionally associated with the 48 syllables of the iroha poem ^[10]. They climb toward Lake Chuzenji in a national-park landscape and have been a famous motor and bus approach for generations.

It is tenth as a named, literary-numerical hairpin system, unusual for the pairing of two one-way roads and for the syllable numbering, rather than for raw danger ^[10]. The poem is a mnemonic; the asphalt is the road.

Traffic in the foliage season is heavy. The one-way rule is the main safety fact ^[10].

Conclusion

Unusual, in this list, means a road that does something ordinary highways do not: hop through open sea, vanish at high tide, share space with a runway, corkscrew down a city block, run inside a cliff, or stack hairpins as a designed object, from the Atlantic Ocean Road of 1989 to the Iroha-zaka and Trollstigen seasonal climbs ^[1]^[2]^[4]. A later tunnel, as in Gibraltar in 2023, can change the daily use of an odd alignment without erasing it.

Beauty and danger remain separate Finepedia questions. The useful habit here is the same as on a tidal causeway: read the official notice, and do not treat a famous photograph as a driving manual, especially at Eshima Ohashi, where the camera has done more than the gradient, or at Gibraltar, where the 2023 tunnel changed the daily commute without erasing the unusual runway road itself from the present map.