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Chinese bridge advances in Chongqing mountainous region with numbers that draw attention for their scale: steel arch structure, record-breaking main span, height over 310 meters, and metal volume comparable to major icons of world engineering.
China has completed one of the central stages of the Fenglai Daxi River Grand Bridge in Chongqing, in the southwest of the country, by closing the steel arch that spans the Daxi River valley in the Wulong district.
With a 580-meter main span, height over 310 meters above the river, and use of 25.8 thousand tons of steel, the project has become a reference among major engineering projects in mountainous areas.
Integrated into the Wuliang Expressway, the bridge is part of a planned road connection to improve travel in a region marked by deep valleys, steep slopes, and natural obstacles that hinder highway construction.
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In the road’s layout, the Daxi River gorge appeared as one of the most complex points to overcome, as the section requires a structure capable of spanning a great distance without relying on supports at the valley floor.
Although it appears in some descriptions as a suspension bridge, the Fenglai Daxi River Grand Bridge is a steel arch bridge, with a deck supported by a large trussed structure installed between the mountains.
This distinction changes the reading of the record attributed to the project, as the technical highlight is the largest span among steel arch bridges, and not in comparison with all types of existing metal bridges.
580-meter arch places Chinese bridge in record-breaking category
Within the category of steel trussed arch bridges, the main span of 580 meters placed the Fenglai among the most significant structures ever built, especially for the combination of length, altitude, and assembly complexity.
The specialized portal HighestBridges describes the project as the largest bridge of its kind entirely in steel, while ECNS reported that the closing of the arch marked the completion of the largest free-span steel arch bridge in the world.
In total, the structure is 1,136.7 meters long and crosses the Daxi River at a height equivalent to a building of approximately 100 floors, in one of the most rugged regions of Chongqing.
This combination of dimensions helps explain why the project requires high-precision engineering solutions, as the arch needs to maintain stability during assembly and also after the final integration with the deck.
In the structural design, the central arch follows a proportion of 5 to 1 between span and rise, resulting in an elevation of 116 meters at the highest point of the curve.
With this geometry, the compression forces are distributed along the structure more efficiently, an essential condition for a bridge that spans a deep valley without intermediate support on the riverbed.
Bridge crosses valley more than 310 meters above the Daxi River
Among the most impressive data, the height of over 310 meters above the Daxi River places the Fenglai Daxi River Grand Bridge in a select group of bridges erected over extremely deep valleys.
HighestBridges records the structure at 1,017 feet, or 310 meters, and states that it is the only bridge in Chongqing above the 300-meter height mark.
Due to this elevation difference, the assembly of the metal segments required permanent control of deformations, millimetric precision in fitting the pieces, and constant attention to the behavior of the arch during each stage of construction.
In a project of this magnitude, small variations in positioning can compromise the final alignment, especially when the two sides of the structure approach the central closure over the valley.
The segmented construction allowed for the installation of large metal sections progressively until the two assembly fronts met at the central point of the arch.
Even though it is a known technique in large bridges, the method gains complexity when it involves difficult access, operation at altitude, winds in open areas, and logistics limited by mountainous terrain.
Steel, foundations, and geometry explain the challenge of the project
The volume of steel used in the Fenglai Daxi River Grand Bridge reaches 25.8 thousand tons, according to data released by the Seetao platform, specialized in infrastructure and engineering.
Located in a deep gorge area of the Daxi River, in Wulong, the bridge had to be designed to overcome large altitude variations and withstand concentrated forces on rocky masses.
The foundations play a decisive role in this configuration because they receive the loads transferred by the arch and support the structure on terrain marked by steep slopes and high-resistance rock formations.
According to HighestBridges, the foundation pillars have a 2.2-meter diameter, a dimension compatible with the forces generated by an arch bridge installed over a deep valley.
More than a visual element, the arch acts as the main stability piece of the bridge, directing the loads to the lateral supports and reducing the need for pillars at the bottom of the valley.
This solution allows for spanning large distances with a rigid and continuous structure, a characteristic especially relevant in regions where the terrain makes the installation of intermediate supports unfeasible or very difficult.
Fenglai Daxi River Grand Bridge integrates new road connection
The Fenglai Daxi River Grand Bridge is part of the Wuliang Expressway, a road connection associated with the expansion of mobility in mountainous areas of Chongqing.
In practice, the project seeks to overcome a significant natural obstacle in the highway’s route, although the consulted sources do not reliably inform the exact reduction in travel time after the bridge’s operation.
On November 28, 2025, ECNS reported that China had completed the world’s largest free-span steel arch bridge, with a 580-meter main span and 1,136.7 meters in length.
With this update, the statement that the bridge “will have” the record loses precision, as the structural closure of the arch was presented by the agency as a completed stage.
The comparison with the Eiffel Tower helps to gauge the volume of metal used in the construction, but serves as an illustrative resource and not as a technical classification of the structure.
For engineering, the central data remains in the record of the main span in a steel arch bridge, combined with the crossing installed more than 310 meters above the Daxi River
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