The is a national expressway in the TÃ Âhoku region of Japan. The expressway begins at an interchange with the TÃ Âhoku Expressway in Kitakami, Iwate from where it proceeds northwest towards the capital of Akita Prefecture, Akita. From there, it travels northeast back to another interchange along the TÃ Âhoku Expressway in the town of Kosaka. It is jointly owned and operated by East Nippon Expressway Company and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT). The Akita Expressway is numbered E7 between Kosaka and Kitakami Junctions and E46 between Kitakami and Kawabe Junctions under the MLIT's "2016 Proposal for Realization of Expressway Numbering."
The expressway begins at a junction with the Tà Âhoku Expressway in Iwate Prefecture and crosses into Akita Prefecture to the west. The route intersects the Tà Âhoku-Chà «à  Expressway in Yokote and the Nihonkai-Tà Âhoku Expressway in the Akita city area. From this junction, the route follows a northerly course parallel to the Sea of Japan to National Route 7 in Noshiro where the expressway meets a gap in its routing. The expressway resumes its course, heading northeast towards the Tà Âhoku Expressway near OdateâÂÂNoshiro Airport in Kitaakita. The Akita Expressway ends at a junction with the Tà Âhoku Expressway in the town of Kosaka.
The sections between Hachiryà « and Futatsui-Shirakami interchanges and Kanisawa Interchange and Kosaka Junction are toll-free; all other sections assess tolls based on distance traveled in the same manner as most other national expressways.
The expressway was the first highway of its kind to employ a snow-melting system that stores heat in the expressway's embankments during the summer. The system is in place in Daisen outside of the Kyowa Tunnel. The heat is then released during heavy snowfall events to clear snow off the expressway.
The entire route is signed as the Akita Expressway for consistency purposes, however two separate sections of the route are officially designated as the Akita Sotokanjà  Expressway and Kotooka Noshiro Road (both bypasses of National Route 7). These sections are not classified as national expressways but rather as .
Planning for an expressway between the cities of Kitakami and Akita began in 1982. The first section of this expressway was opened on 25 July 1991 after nine years of planning and construction that cost 1.158 trillion yen (about 1 billion US dollars). It was a section of highway that linked Akita to Yokote. By 1994 the expressway was linked to the TÃ Âhoku Expressway in Kitakami following the opening of Kitakami Junction. The next major connection to the expressway was its linkage to the Nihonkai-TÃ Âhoku Expressway at Kawabe Junction in Akita on 23 July 1997.
An experiment was conducted by MLIT to determine what the effects of lifting tolls along the expressway north of the city of Akita would be. Immediately following the 2011 TÃ Âhoku earthquake and tsunami, the experiment was suspended to raise funds for the repairs of expressways in the TÃ Âhoku region. By August 2011 the expressway had been extended in various stages all the way north from the city of Akita to Futatsui-Shirakami Interchange in Noshiro. In August 2011, following the toll-lifting experiment it was decided by MLIT that much of the aforementioned segment of the expressway, as well as any future segments built along the planned route, would be toll-free. On 30 November 2013, the expressway was linked to its northern terminus in Kosaka along the TÃ Âhoku Expressway following the opening of a section of highway. On 13 December 2020, a section of the expressway opened in Kitaakita, extending the northern section of the expressway closer to the southern section.
As of December 2020, the entirety of the Akita Expressway is open to traffic except for a section linking the cities of Noshiro and Kitaakita in northern Akita Prefecture. A section of this gap in the route is set to be completed by 2023, however there is no date scheduled for the total completion of the expressway.