They are defined by their traffic. Show me a nation's roads, and I'll show you its very soul. Think about it for a minute. Singapore has no roads, having reinvented the notion. China has something like a road, but it is used for tractors and trucks, bicycles and such, since there are only 256 cars in the entire country.
Roads are here and there.
Roads are slept on, walked on, spat on in India. Roads are used to store and winnow the rice crop, to dry acres of red chilis, to milk the family cow. Roads serve as temporary shops. Not only is every type of transportation found on every road, but every kind of living thing. Goats and ducks are shepherded in front of screeching busses.