U.S. Route 40
U.S. Numbered Highway in the United States
U.S. Route 40 or U.S. Highway 40 (US 40), also known as the Main Street of America (a nickname shared with U.S. Route 66), is a major east–west United States Highway traveling across the United States from the Mountain states to the Mid-Atlantic. As with most routes whose numbers end in a zero, US 40 once traversed the entire country. It is one of the first U.S. Highways created in 1926, and its original termini were in San Francisco, California, and Atlantic City, New Jersey. US 40 ends at a junction with Interstate 80 (I-80) in Silver Summit, Utah, just outside Salt Lake City. West of this point US 40 was functionally replaced with I-80, and as these segments of I-80 were constructed the western portion of US 40 was truncated several times.
Starting at its western terminus in Utah, US 40 crosses a total of 12 states, including Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey. US 40 passes through or by major cities including Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus, Baltimore, and Wilmington. Three former and four current state capitals lie along the route. For much of its route, US 40 runs parallel to, or concurrently with, several major Interstate Highways: I-70 from Denver, Colorado, to Washington, Pennsylvania; and again from Hancock, Maryland to Baltimore; I-64 in parts of Missouri and Illinois; I-68 along western Maryland; and I-95 from Baltimore to New Castle, Delaware.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “U.S. Route 40” is u.S. Numbered Highway in the United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Route, Numbered and Highway, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q409496. VIAF identifies the subject as 315526458. The Library of Congress control number is sh85141045. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926.
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This entry incorporates text from “U.S. Route 40” 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.