BRIDGES

bridges: translation

China has a long history of building bridges. The country is famous for its expertise in stone arch construction. Significant breakthroughs in technological processes have permitted China to leap into the world’s advanced ranks in bridge-building capacity under varied geological conditions. Bridges of various types have been built to stride across the country’s main rivers. The Wuhan Bridge, completed in 1957, was the first major highway-railway bridge with a main structure consisting of continuous steel trusses. The first pre-stressed concrete rigid-frame bridge dates back to 1964 when the Yanhe River Bridge in Jiangsu province opened to traffic. The Yunyang Bridge in Sichuan province, completed in 1975, is the earliest cable-stayed bridge in China.

Suspension bridges and pre-stressed concrete arch bridges have been built in remote mountainous areas and over the deep valleys of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan provinces. By 2000, China had 240, 630 highway bridges totalling 8,655,112 metres in length. Crossing river junctions have improved traffic networks between cities along the Yangzi and the Yellow Rivers. Bridges have been instrumental in facilitating the construction of dam power plants, the development of farm production, and the exploitation of mineral resources. Bridges have also created a favourable environment for the development of the tourist industry. In the 1990s China built a record number of city river bridges, two-deck rail and highway bridges, interchanges, flyovers and overpasses. The grade-separation bridges in cities with different transport capacities are transforming China’s urban landscape.