SW China's Guizhou integrates bridges with tourism development

Southwest China's Guizhou Province has explored new development models of tourism that integrate bridges with extreme sports, educational tours, and scenic areas.

The province's department of transport has been promoting such models by focusing on the Baling River Bridge, the Pingtang Bridge, and the Xijiang service area along the Kaili-Leishan expressway.

The Baling River Bridge, spanning 2,237 meters, stretches through a valley in Guanling Buyi and Miao Autonomous County of Guizhou. With a main span of 1,088 meters, the 370 meter-high bridge is the first in the world with a span of over 1,000 meters built over a valley in a mountainous area. It's the first bridge to receive visitors to its internal structure in Guizhou.

Photo shows the Baling River Bridge in southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Tu Min)

The Baling River Bridge is also a renowned extreme sports resort featuring bungee jumping, parachuting, parasailing, and other extreme sports activities. The bridge’s 370 meter-high bungee-jump platform is the highest such commercial facility in the world.

Photo shows the Pingtang Bridge in southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Tu Min)

The Pingtang Bridge, spanning 2,135 meters, in Pingtang county of Guizhou, is a cable-suspended bridge that boasts of the world's highest concrete bridge tower at 332 meters. It won the 38th Gustavs Lindesar Prize, the “Nobel Prize” of the international bridge industry.

Guizhou launched a tourist route linking the Pingtang Bridge and nearby Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), which is the world's largest single-dish and most sensitive radio telescope, and scenic areas including karst sinkholes in Pingtang county.