The D1 motorway () is the main motorway of the Czech Republic. It routes from Prague to Brno and on to the Polish border. Completed in December 2025, its length is . It is the busiest motorway in the Czech Republic, with a maximum AADT of 99,000 vehicles per day near Prague.
The Munich Agreement in 1938 deprived the country of some fundamental road and rail routes. The government rushed to prepare three major infrastructure projects: the NÃÂmecký Brod â Brno railway; the Plzeà  â Ostrava road; and a 4-lane highway from Prague to Velký BoÃÂkov (on the Czechoslovak â Romanian border). On 23 December 1938 the government issued Decree no. 372/1938 Coll. concerning the construction of motorways, establishing the General Motorway Directorate. This decree called for construction of an east-west motorway within four years.
As of January 1939, the General Motorway Directorate had 108 employees. On 13 January 1939, the Prague â Jihlava â Brno â Slovak border motorway project was approved, and construction was started on two segments: Chodov (now part of Prague) â Humpolec; and Zástà Âizly â Luà ¾ná. The prime minister of Carpathian Ruthenia, Avgustyn Voloshyn, requested that the Slovak border â Chust segment be added to the plan as well. Construction began on the Zástà Âizly â Luà ¾ná segment on 24 January in Zástà Âizly in the Chà Âiby mountains.
The German occupation of Czechoslovakia brought only small technical changes to the project, and the construction of another segment, Chodov â Humpolec, began in May 1939. The increasing demands of World War II slowed down the construction, and the works were completely halted in 1942. After the war the works were resumed mainly on major bridges in 1946, but only with a small workforce.
After 1948 the works continued. But in January 1949 the segment in Chà Âiby was abandoned, and the Prague â Humpolec segment met the same fate one year later. All 77 km of motorway under construction at that time, including 60 bridges, remained in disuse.
In the 1960s, traffic was growing very quickly, and a new plan for a D1 highway from Prague to the Soviet Union border was formulated. Work on the Prague â Brno section started in 1967, mainly using the old route from the first attempt. The 21-km long Prague â Miroà ¡ovice segment was completed in July 1971, and the 205-km long route to Brno was finished in November 1980.
In Slovakia, construction started in 1973 with the 14-km long Ivachnová â Liptovský MikulÃ¡à ¡ section, together with the construction of the Liptovská Mara dam. The 19-km Preà ¡ov â Koà ¡ice motorway was added in 1980. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s the 19-km long Brno â Vyà ¡kov segment was built, along with another 20 km from Liptovský MikulÃ¡à ¡ to Hybe in Slovakia.
After the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, construction was no longer planned to Slovakia, but instead to LipnÃÂk nad BeÃÂvou (the replacement of the planned route is the R49 expressway). Due to growing traffic near Prague, the first segment to Miroà ¡ovice was widened from 4 lanes to 6 lanes, and there are similar plans for widening around Brno as well. After the dissolution, no new sections were built. In 2002, construction of an 18-km long extension from Vyà ¡kov eastwards started. It was opened in 2005. More extensions eastwards were opened in 2008, 2009 and 2010; in 2011, the motorway reached the junction with the R55 expressway and the R49 expressway near HulÃÂn, and the route curved north to Pà Âerov (and LipnÃÂk nad BeÃÂvou).
The segment from LipnÃÂk nad BeÃÂvou to Ostrava was constructed from 2004 â 2009. Due to historical reasons it was named the Motorway D47; however, it was opened as part of the D1. The segment from Ostrava to the Polish border (and Autostrada A1) opened in late 2012, but only for cars under 3.5 tonnes, because the Polish side had problems with the bridge at Mszana village. From 2014 the bridge is open, and it is possible to drive from Ostrava to the Polish border and on to Katowice. The Pà Âerov â LipnÃÂk nad BeÃÂvou segment opened in December 2019.
In 2022, the re-categorisation of the section from the zero kilometre at Chodov across the Prague border (km 5.2) to the crossing with the Prague ring road (km 10.2) as a local road, together with the transfer of the Prague section (including buildings and land by a donation contract) to the ownership of the City of Prague was prepared. On 4 February 2022, Ã ÂSD and Prague concluded a future donation agreement. The city council approved the plan on 17 May 2022, and the city council by resolution No. 37/42 on 26 May 2022.
The donation contract, by which the state, through à ÂSD, donated the first 5.2 km of the motorway to the capital city of Prague, was concluded on 29 June 2022 and published on 19 December 2022; the contract quantified the book value of the donated property at CZK 4,793,160,294. The Prague section of the motorway (km 0 - 5.2) was re-categorised as a local first class road. In the contract, Prague undertook the task of modifying the traffic signs on the date of the Prague ring road's commissioning in the section between BÃÂchovice, and the D1 motorway.
As of 1 January 2023, it was announced that the section km 0.0-5.2 would be transferred to the ownership of the City of Prague and removed from the toll network. The section was re-designated as a road for motor vehicles. In its Twitter message, à ÂSD mistakenly informed about the transfer of the section to a Class I road, but later corrected the message that it was a transfer to a local Class I road, the spokeswoman of TSK hl. However, the Prague TSK spokesperson Barbora Lià ¡ková reportedly continued to mystify that it was a Class I road.
The final section to be completed was the à ÂÃÂkovice â Pà Âerov segment. Construction on this segment started in 2022, and was opened to drivers on 19 December 2025.
Furthermore, in April 2025, the widening works (to three lanes in each direction) on the long section in Brno should conclude.
Content in this edit is translated from the existing Czech Wikipedia article at ; see its history for attribution.