It starts at Vigo heads east from the town crossing the Autopista AP-9 and then the N-550/Autovía A-55.

The road heads east over the Alto do Canizo (1,035m) into the Valle de Sanabria overlooked by the Sierra la Cabrera rising to 2,044m at Mt Moncalvo.

The road then heads along the Rio Tera which is dammed into a series of reservoirs.

The section of the A-52 that runs through the northwest of the province of Zamora, as it passes through the regions of La Carballeda and Sanabria, has been identified by various environmental groups as the black point of Spanish roads for the wolf, a species that in Spain enjoys protection status.

There are several reasons for this problem, most of them related to the lack of maintenance of the highway as it passes through said territory.