Currently, the southern terminus is Xuwen County, in the city of Zhanjiang, Guangdong, because the fixed link to Haikou, Hainan has not been built yet.

[1] Once fully complete, the expressway features many other important crossings over bodies of water.

The expressway crosses the Yangtze River using the Sutong Bridge, the bridge with the second longest cable-stayed span in the world as of 2012[update], connecting Nantong and Changshu, a satellite city of Suzhou, in Jiangsu Province.

It passes to the west of the city centre of Jiading, where a multi-level stack interchange connects it with the northern section of the G1501 Shanghai Ring Expressway, before continuing south into Qingpu District.

An interchange with Songze Elevated Road provides access east to the adjacent airport and railway station.

The branch line splits off from the main expressway after the Sutong Bridge and passes through the cities of Suzhou, Jiaxing, and Shaoxing before rejoining the main expressway just north of Taizhou.

The name combines the first character of each of the 2 cities, Shen and Da, making it the Shenda highway.