The highway is named in the honor of General Emilio Aguinaldo, the country's first president and a native of Cavite.

The northern terminus of the highway is located at the Zapote Bridge at the province's boundary with Las Piñas in Metro Manila.

The section that connects with Manila–Cavite Expressway (then Coastal Road), called the Aguinaldo Boulevard, is also designated as National Route 62 (N62) of the Philippine highway network.

Various high voltage power lines, most notably the Dasmariñas-Las Piñas transmission line of National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), utilize the highway right of way from its intersection with Aguinaldo Boulevard and Bacoor Boulevard to Barangay San Agustin II, Dasmariñas for accessibility to work vehicles and also due to scarcity of land for the acquisition of right of way and lands where the steel poles stand.

It then passes Imus and enters Dasmariñas, where it reduces to a four-lane road and becoming a divided highway in most portions.

South of Tirona Highway, it is alternatively known as Cavite–Batangas Road, historically serving as the link between Cavite and Batangas, forming N419 and part of N410.

[7] The old roads that passed on the western barangays of Bacoor and Imus are bypassed by a new alignment that existed until today.