The world’s highest bridge has opened to traffic in China, connecting two provinces in the mountainous southwest and reducing travel times by as much as three-quarters, local authorities said on Friday.
The Beipanjiang Bridge took three years to build, cost more than $146.7 million dollars, and stretches to be 4,396 feet long. It is suspended over a 1,854-foot gorge to be called the world’s highest bridge.
The bridge’s four-lane roadway sits nearly two thousand feet over the Beipan River, which it is named after, to connect the Yunnan and Guizhou provinces in southwest China, reported People’s Daily Online. It surpassed the 1,837-foot-tall Sidu River Bridge for the world record title.
The bridge cut travel times between Xuanwei in Yunnan to Shuicheng in Guizhou from more than four hours to around one.
Though the Beipanjiang Bridge might be the highest bridge in the world, the world’s tallest bridge is still the Millau viaduct in France which tops out at 1,125 feet.