A highway strip, road runway or road base is a section of a highway, motorway or other form of public road that is specially built to act as a runway for (mostly) military aircraft and to serve as an auxiliary military air base.

Yes, roads can be used as runways, and this is a specific military strategy known as "highway strips." Many countries, including Sweden, Finland, Germany, India, and Switzerland, have specially designed stretches of public highway that are built to a higher standard—wider, straighter, and thicker—to allow fighter jets and military transport planes to land and take off in the event that airbases are bombed or unusable. These sections of road often lack permanent medians and have underground power lines to clear the flight path. In emergencies, commercial pilots have also famously landed large jets on freeways when they ran out of fuel or suffered total engine failure. For example, in India, the IAF has conducted multiple successful trials landing Mirage 2000 and Sukhoi-30 jets on the Yamuna and Agra-Lucknow Expressways. Additionally, the Gibraltar International Airport is famous for having a main city road (Winston Churchill Avenue) that actually intersects the active runway, requiring cars to stop at a red light whenever a plane is taking off.