The highway runs 5.94 miles (9.56 km) from Jacobs Road near Fort Meade east to MD 3 Business in Glen Burnie.

MD 174 connects Glen Burnie with Severn and Fort George G. Meade in northern Anne Arundel County.

MD 174 begins on the eastern edge of the Fort Meade military reservation at an intersection with Jacobs Road.

[1][2] When the Maryland State Roads Commission applied numbers to state highways, they assigned MD 170 to its current corridor from Severn to Brooklyn Park and to what is now MD 174 from Severn to Fort Meade.

[4] A section of highway from the current MD 170–MD 174 intersection in Severn west to the Pennsylvania Railroad (now Amtrak's Northeast Corridor) was built as a 14-foot (4.3 m) wide concrete road by 1915.

[5] Construction on the highway from Linthicum to Fort Meade became a high priority with the United States' entrance into World War I; the remainder of the Severn–Linthicum highway and the highway from the railroad at Severn southwest to newly established Camp Meade, now collectively called the Camp Meade Road, were paved in 14-to-16-foot (4.3 to 4.9 m) wide concrete between 1916 and 1919.

[14] The state highway was rolled back to its present terminus at MD 3 Business by 1974.