Metro Manila's major road network comprises six circumferential roads and ten radial roads connecting the cities of Caloocan, Las Piñas, Makati, Malabon, Mandaluyong, Manila, Marikina, Muntinlupa, Navotas, Parañaque, Pasay, Pasig, Quezon City, San Juan, Taguig, and Valenzuela, and the municipality of Pateros.

In 1945, the Metropolitan Thoroughfare Plan was submitted by Quezon City planners Louis Croft and Antonio Kayanan which proposed the laying of 10 radial roads, which purposes in conveying traffic in and out of the city of Manila to the surrounding cities and provinces, and the completion of six Circumferential Roads, that will act as beltways of the city, forming altogether a web-like arterial road system.

[4][5] The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is the government agency that deals with these projects.

There are ten radial roads that serves the purpose of conveying traffic in and out of the city of Manila to the surrounding cities of the metropolis and to the provinces, numbered in a counter clockwise pattern.

The network consists of controlled-access highways and limited-access roads, with crossing traffic limited to overpasses, underpasses, and interchanges.

Some existing expressways serving Metro Manila also form part of the latter's arterial road network (see the list above).