Bundesautobahn 7

is the longest German Autobahn and the longest national motorway in Europe at 963 km (598 mi). It bisects the country almost evenly between east and west. In the north, it starts at the border with Denmark as an extension of the Danish part of E45. In the south, the autobahn ends at the Austrian border. This final gap was closed in September 2009. The Bundesautobahn 7 starts at Flensburg and travels through the two states at Schleswig and Rendsburg, through the world's busiest artificial waterway of Kiel Canal crossing the Rader high bridge. At Rendsburg you can change to the A 210, a feeder to the Schleswig-Holstein capital, Kiel. A few kilometers further south there is another feeder route to Kiel, the A 215, into the A7 at the interchange Bordesholm; however, this can only be reached from the south, likewise from the A 215 you can only reach the A7 in the south. South of Bordesholm, the highway has been continuously expanded to six lanes since 2014 due to the high traffic volume to Hamburg. Since 2016 and 2017, several sections have six lanes. Here, the motorway leads past the cities of Neumünster, Bad Bramstedt and Norderstedt, before the hamlet of Schnelsen reaches Hamburg's urban area, and also Hamburg Airport. From the intersection Hamburg-Nordwest, where the A23 branches off towards Heide, the A7 is six lanes, but is currently being expanded to eight lanes. The section through the city of Hamburg is characterized by an immense volume of traffic, congestion is the order of the day here. There are several reasons for this: the motorway runs through inner-city areas, there is a lot of holiday traffic on the route during school holidays, there are practically no opportunities for bypassing, the speed is permanently limited to 80 km / h as an urban area and the section is extended, South of the equipped with four tubes to two lanes Elbe tunnel leads the A7 on the highway Elbmarsch, the longest road bridge in Germany, right through the harbor area and the Harburg mountains to Lower Saxony.