The world’s longest bridge officially opened to traffic this morning in Guizhou province in southwestern China, significantly reducing travel time across a deep valley from two hours to just two minutes after three years of construction.
According to Xinhua News Agency, the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge stands at 625 meters above the Biban River amidst the mountainous terrain of Guizhou, making it approximately nine times longer than the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
As reported by local authorities, the main span of the bridge measures 1,420 meters, making it the longest suspension bridge supported by steel truss structures in a mountainous landscape worldwide.
The entire structure spans 2,890 meters over the Huajiang Great Valley, known as the “Earth Split,” and is the latest addition to the rapidly expanding infrastructure network of the world’s second-largest economy.
Located just over 100 kilometers from the former titleholder of the world’s longest bridge, which crossed the Biban River, the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge takes its place. The previous record holder, inaugurated in 2016, has a vertical height of 565.4 meters from the bridge deck to the river below.
Over the years, Guizhou, one of China’s least developed provinces, has constructed more than 30,000 bridges in its mountainous regions, including three of the world’s longest bridges. The province is home to nearly half of the top 100 longest bridges globally.