EDSA
major thoroughfare in Metro Manila, Philippines
Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, commonly referred to by its acronym EDSA (Tagalog: [ˈʔɛd.sɐ]), is a major circumferential road around Metro Manila, Philippines named after academic Epifanio de los Santos. It passes through 6 of Metro Manila's 17 local government units or cities, namely, from north to south, Caloocan, Quezon City, San Juan, Mandaluyong, Makati, and Pasay. It is the longest and the most congested highway in the metropolis, stretching some 23.8 kilometers (14.8 mi).
Structure
EDSA forms part of Circumferential Road 4 (C-4) of Metro Manila's arterial road network, National Route 1 (N1) of the Philippine highway network and Asian Highway 26 (AH26) of the Asian Highway Network. The locations around the avenue were marked with great economic and industrial growth, proven by the fact that all but five financial and industrial centers or districts and four SM Supermalls in the metropolis are directly accessible and passing from the thoroughfare which are SM North EDSA, Triangle Park, Araneta City, Ortigas Center, SM Megamall, Makati CBD, SM Makati, Bay City, and SM Mall of Asia. The decent economic growth of the areas around the avenue adds a significant volume of traffic on the avenue, and in recent estimates, and an average of 385,096 vehicles go through it every day.
The whole avenue serves as an access point or gateway to other geographical divisions of Luzon outside Metro Manila, Visayas, and the capital city of Manila which are (with notable roads shown in parenthesis):
Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan to SM North EDSA in Quezon City: Central and Northern Luzon (MacArthur Highway and North Luzon Expressway (NLEX))
SM North EDSA in Quezon City to SM Mall of Asia in Pasay: Southern Luzon and Visayas (Aurora Boulevard, Ortigas Avenue, Magallanes Interchange to South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) and STAR Tollway, Harrison Street, Elpidio Quirino Avenue and Diego Cera Avenue to Zapote River at the boundary of the metropolitan area's Las Piñas and Bacoor in Cavite, Roxas Boulevard to Manila–Cavite Expressway (CAVITEX), and Macapagal Boulevard and J.W. Diokno Boulevard to Seaside Drive, Pacific Avenue and CAVITEX)
Bonifacio Monument to Balintawak Interchange and Makati CBD in Makati to SM Mall of Asia: Manila (Rizal Avenue, Andres Bonifacio Avenue, Buendia Avenue, Antonio Arnaiz Avenue, Magallanes Interchange to Osmeña Highway, Taft Avenue, Roxas Boulevard, Macapagal Boulevard, Magdalena Jalandoni Street and Vicente Sotto Street to Roxas Boulevard, and J.W. Diokno Boulevard, Atang Dela Rama Street and also Vicente Sotto Street to Roxas Boulevard).
The road is a divided carriageway, often consisting of 12 lanes, 6 in either direction, with the elevated railroads Manila Metro Rail Transit System Line 3 and Manila Light Rail Transit System Line 1 often serving as its median. Although it is not an expressway, traffic rules and speed limits are strictly implemented to the vehicles that pass along it. It is operated by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, and is maintained by the Department of Public Works and Highways from Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan to Roxas Boulevard in Pasay and Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA) from Roxas Boulevard to SM Mall of Asia.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1347008. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “EDSA” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.