It follows a northeasterly and southwesterly direction stretching from Delaware in the south to Maine in the north and traveling through the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.

The freeway then transitions into a divided highway, passing the King of Prussia shopping mall and heading northeast through commercial areas before splitting into a one-way pair through the streets of Bridgeport and Norristown, crossing the Schuylkill River in the process.

North of Norristown, US 202 continues as a two-lane road heading northeast through the Philadelphia suburbs, passing through Blue Bell and Lower Gwynedd, where it becomes a four-lane highway for about two miles (3 km).

East of Lansdale, in Montgomeryville, it turns into an expressway-grade parkway with a parallel trail, which opened in December 2012.

[4] It continues northeast toward Doylestown, where it joins an older section of bypass at Pennsylvania Route 611 and proceeds north to the old alignment of US 202 (State Street).

It continues as a two-lane road to New Hope, crossing the Delaware River on the New Hope-Lambertville Toll Bridge.

It then follows the Paterson-Hamburg Turnpike, Terhune Drive on the east side of Pompton Lake (past the former homes of Cecil B. DeMille and Albert Payson Terhune), and Ramapo Valley Road (more or less paralleling the Ramapo River through Oakland) to Mahwah before crossing the New York state line on the Franklin Turnpike.

The two wind around Anthony's Nose, briefly forming New York's only three-way concurrency of U.S. highways with US 9 at Peekskill.

The highways reunite at Brewster and become a four-lane road for their last few miles before the state line, taking in NY 121 in the process.

US 202 continues through Torrington and on to Cherry Brook, where it then runs concurrently with US 44 for several miles before turning northward at Avon.

After crossing MA 9, it then heads north along the west side of the Quabbin Reservoir through New Salem toward Athol.

This section of US 202 has been dubbed the Daniel Shays Highway, named for a Revolutionary War veteran who led an insurrection against the state government of Massachusetts.

In Massachusetts, US 202 passes through the municipalities of Southwick, Westfield, Holyoke, South Hadley, Granby, Belchertown, Pelham, Shutesbury, New Salem, Orange, Athol, Phillipston, Templeton, and Winchendon.

The roadway reaches its closest point to the reservoir itself at the crossing of the Swift River, at the Shutesbury/New Salem town line.

It heads north, through Rindge, Jaffrey, and Peterborough, to Hillsborough, where it turns eastward along a concurrency with New Hampshire Route 9.

The span of the road between Hillsborough and Hopkinton, which passes through Henniker, is among the most deadly sections of roadway in the state.

[6] At Concord, New Hampshire, the state capital, US 202 heads north and picks up a concurrency with US 3 for a short time, and then turns eastward again along Interstate 393, a freeway spur that also carries US 4.

The highway parallels I-95 through New Gloucester to Auburn and crosses the Androscoggin River into Lewiston, passing near the campus of Bates College.

[7] A very short stretch through the latter two cities is four-lane highway, but most of its length in the Pine Tree State consists of two-lane road.

In 1964, the AASHO approved a request by Delaware to eliminate the portion of US 202 between its intersection with I-295 in Farnhurst and State Road; that stretch was carrying US 13/40/301.

[9] In New Hampshire, US 202 passes by a historical marker in Antrim commemorating the last surviving soldier of the Revolutionary War.

[13] Construction began in November 2008 on a parkway project between Pennsylvania Route 63 in Lower Gwynedd and the existing cloverleaf interchange at the US 202 bypass and PA 611 near Doylestown.