Highway of Enthusiasts by The Internal Expression

Chaussee (highway)

Highway is an historic term used in German-speaking countries for early, metalled, rural highways, designed by road engineers, as opposed to the hitherto, traditional, unpaved country roads. The term is no longer used in modern road construction in Western Europe, but survives in road names and is used by historians. In Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet states it remains a generic term for a common paved highway outside of built-up areas, but they may transition into prospekts within towns and cities.

The German word Chaussee was borrowed from the French chaussée by the German construction industry in the 18th century. The French word, in turn, went back to the Gallo-Romanic via calciata and meant a road surfaced with firmly compacted crushed rock bound with lime. circular reference] Contemporary German translations of the word were Straßendamm ('road embankment') and Hochweg ('high way') and even the roughly similar English word, highway. Around 1790, Adelung complained that "several new authors have proposed German names" but these expressions "do not capture the concept either, and may be used for every other type of artificial way Kunststraße. The word Kunststraße ('artificial road') then established itself but, in the main, the French word entered the German language as a loanword.

The first roads of the chaussee type were built in Western Europe in the early 18th century, coming from Holland at the end of the baroque period. For example, in Swabia, the first road was built in the chaussee design between Öttingen and Nördlingen in 1753.

After the Napoleonic Wars, during which the importance of well constructed roads became recognised - for military logistical and strategic reasons - not least because of the use made by the French of forced marches (up to then war strategy was based primarily on the garrison concept, i.e. the stationing of non-mobile troops), but also express mail services developed, thinking moved increasingly towards the concept of trunk roads (Fernstraßen), whose importance was based both on the comfort of individual road users and for reasons of national interest. In Prussia, for example, the construction of chaussees, especially after the Stein-Hardenberg reforms (1807) certainly served military purposes. This created a basis for improving the flow of trade during the early industrial period, even before the railway era began.

The chaussee was also, important for urban development. With the advent of the chaussee, the concept was born of a major road running right to the gates of a town or city. And with the demolition of fortifications in the Gründerzeit period of the late 19th century, the avenue and boulevard appeared in the form of urban axes or ring roads as access roads to the chaussee.
Sources. Chaussee (highway), from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia