Burwood Highway (and its western section as Toorak Road) is a major transportation link with Melbourne's eastern fringe at the foot of the Dandenong Ranges, linking the suburbs of Hawthorn and Belgrave.

Burwood Highway commences at the interchange with CityLink and Monash Freeway at Hawthorn and heads east as Toorak Road, a four-lane single carriageway (often clogged with heavy traffic) through the southern fringes of Camberwell, with tram services continuing east along the road where it meets Camberwell Road.

It passes the Westfield Knox shopping centre in Wantirna South, heading in a south-easterly direction through Ferntree Gully until it meets Mount Dandenong Tourist Road at Upper Ferntree Gully, where it narrows back to a four-lane single carriageway road, until it eventually terminates at a roundabout with Monbulk and Belgrave–Gembrook Roads in Belgrave.

(Main) Ferntree Gully Road was declared a Main Road, from Fentree Gully through Upwey to Belgrave (and continuing west through Wheelers Hill to Oakleigh), on 20 October 1913.

[11] Burwood Highway was signed as Metropolitan Route 26 between Burwood and Belgrave in 1965; with Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in the late 1990s, the section between Upper Ferntree Gully and Belgrave was replaced by route C412.