[1] As of 2007[update] it was unsealed for its entire length, at 393 kilometres (244 mi).

[2] Funding for maintenance is provided by the Northern Territory Government.

[3] The highway was named in 1966 after Nathaniel Buchanan, a pioneering drover who first brought cattle overland from Queensland to the Northern Territory in 1877 via the Murranji Track; which the highway largely replaced.

[4][5] The highway originally ran from the Stuart Highway west to Top Springs, then Wave Hill and then to the southern end of the Duncan Road which is in Western Australia.

[4] The only major intersection on this road is with the Buntine Highway (National Route 96) at Top Springs.