What do you call the roads along the coast or borders of a country?

In Portuguese we call it marginal (which I would say relates to the word margin, i.e at the border of something).

No result from Google Translate felt as the right answer.

We may say for example Vou pela marginal which means I'm going to take the __ road.

edit My bad, I posed the question wrong I guess. I forgot to mention that what I had in mind was roads at the coast, I'm not sure every country has roads at their borders (probably not), but countries with beaches usually have roads for better access. So I meant, roads touching the ocean or something like that. Coastal road/highway would be it.


It depends on the morphology and the boundaries of the country.

Coastal road/highway is an example of a road running along the border of a country partly surrounded by the sea.

A more generic expression is border road!


  1. Estrada ou rua junto à margem ou junto a uma grande extensão de água. in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa [em linha], 2008-2013, https://www.priberam.pt/dlpo/marginal [consultado em 20-07-2018].

    Priberam is an excellent Portuguese dictionary.

Translation of the definition: A highway or road alongside or to the side of a large body of water.

So, roads run along rivers, coastlines or lakes.

That would give us: coastal road, riverine road (technical), road along a river or river road or riverside road (non-technical) and lakeside road or road along a lake.

In Portugal, the highway (BrE: motorway) that runs along the coast, is said to be a marginal, but not all marginals need run along the seacoast.

Example: Cascais coastal road

The article says: Marginal de Cascais cortada devido às ondas Via está encerrada entre Caxias e Paço de Arcos.

Cascais Coastal Highway [or Road] Shut Off due to waves

Estrada marginal in the article is again: Coastal road. Because the road is "by the sea" (alongside), it is "uma estrada à margem do mar.

coastal highway [American English]or coastal motorway [British English]