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China will open the world’s tallest bridge this month, besting its own record with a structure that can fit almost two Eiffel Towers beneath it. The Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge in southwestern Guizhou, one of China’s poorest provinces, stands a staggering 2,050 feet above ground, making it almost twice the height of Paris’s landmark tower. It stretches 9,481 feet end to end — almost the length of the National Mall in Washington — and spans a deep ravine locally dubbed “earth’s crack.”
It is the latest feat of engineering that underscores China’s outsize infrastructure ambitions.
“The Communist Party believes in building enormous projects to boost the economy and burnish political prestige,” said Dan Wang, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the author of Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future.
The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of China’s Communist Party, touted the bridge as a new “China miracle” that shows “Guizhou speed” and “Guizhou wisdom,” saying it characterizes a new stage in the country’s infrastructure development.
Under construction since 2022, the bridge passed a five-day load test late last month and is expected to open to traffic later this month. It will cut travel time across the Beipan River — between the counties of Guanling and Zhenfeng, with a combined population of about 600,000 — from two hours to just two minutes.
The bridge is also expected to attract tourists. A transparent, 700-foot-tall observation lift will take visitors to a viewing tower atop the bridge, and a half-mile-long glass path will allow pedestrians to walk across the span.
“Unlike the U.S., which already has a highly developed highway system, many regions in western China remain poorly connected. What we are doing is to bridge those gaps and work on those weakest links,” said Li Mingshui, civil engineering professor at Southwest Jiaotong University.
Local engineers have expressed pride in the project’s scale and symbolism.
“Numerous bridge builders like me … are lucky to have caught up with the golden era of [China’s] traffic infrastructure boom,” said Liu Hao, the project’s chief engineer. “When the Huajiang Canyon Bridge opens to traffic, I will definitely bring my daughter here to take a look and tell her proudly that ‘this is another mega project your dad and many other people have accomplished together.’”
Engineers overcame steep canyon slopes and powerful winds, opting for a lighter arch design that reduced the bridge’s weight by 30 percent.
China already held the record for the world’s highest bridge with the Beipanjiang Bridge (1,852 feet) and the longest ocean-spanning bridge with the 22-mile Hangzhou Bay Bridge. But rapid construction has also led to safety concerns — last month, 12 workers died in a bridge collapse in Qinghai province.
Despite debt concerns, China’s leadership continues to promote infrastructure as a backbone of its growth model. President Xi Jinping has urged an “all-around” infrastructure push post-COVID, while Premier Li Qiang recently emphasized the “galvanizing role of megaprojects” to boost investment and domestic consumption.
Guizhou, a mountainous province near Vietnam, has been central to this strategy. Though relatively poor and isolated, it now boasts 11 airports, tall bridges, and new roads — a testament to China’s “strategic hinterland” vision.
“These megaprojects are not bridges to nowhere,” said Li. “Their long-term economic benefits will outweigh their construction costs.” But for Wang, this reflects a different priority: “Rather than distributing funds to people for them to spend as they wish, officials in Beijing are much more keen to control resources to build monumental projects.”
