Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge

The Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge is a railway structure made of reinforced concrete that stretches across 165 kilometers through Jiangsu Province in eastern China. The construction runs through flat landscapes of rice paddies, crosses multiple rivers, and spans a large lake between Shanghai and Nanjing.

Work began in 2006 with ten thousand laborers and finished in 2010, using hundreds of thousands of tons of steel. The project emerged as part of the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed line and stands as one of the largest infrastructure undertakings of its era.

The name connects two cities along the route and follows Chinese tradition of naming long structures after geographic endpoints. Today the construction serves as part of a network moving millions of travelers daily between economic centers and shaping everyday life across the region.

Trains cross the structure at speeds reaching 300 kilometers per hour (186 miles per hour) while monitoring systems track conditions continuously. The construction can withstand earthquakes measuring magnitude eight and was designed for extreme weather conditions.

More than five thousand concrete pillars support the structure and were anchored deep into bedrock to provide stability on soft ground. A nine-kilometer section over Yangcheng Lake in Suzhou was reinforced to withstand impacts from passing vessels.

Location: Jiangsu

Inception: June 30, 2011

Official opening: June 30, 2011

Longest Span: 80 m

GPS coordinates: 31.63779,120.24590

Latest update: December 12, 2025 17:22