BEIJING, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- The total length of high-speed rail lines in China came in at about 37,900 km at the end of 2020, up about 2,900 km from 2019 and almost twice that of 2015, according to the China State Railway Group Co., Ltd.

A bullet train runs in a trial operation of the Xi'an-Yinchuan high-speed railway in Xinmin Town of Binzhou, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Nov. 3, 2020. (Photo by Zhang Xin/Xinhua)

By the end of 2019, the length of high-speed rail lines across the country exceeded 35,000 km, making up more than two-thirds of the world's total, said a white paper titled "Sustainable Development of Transport in China" released in December 2020.

In total, China had 146,300 km of rail lines at the end of 2020, up 20.9 percent from that at the end of 2015, according to the railway operator.

After opening 4,933 km of new rail lines to traffic in 2020, the operator plans to expand the rail lines by about 3,700 kilometers this year.