Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge

The bridge is hailed as an architectural wonder. It used single column piers buried deep in the seabed to support the structure in a way that minimized interference with water currents and caused the least amount of disturbance to populations of Chinese white dolphins.

Opened in 2018, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is the world's longest steel bridge-tunnel system and, aptly, links the three areas of Hong Kong, Zhuhai, and Macau. The 34-mile bridge, which consists of three cable-stayed bridges connected by an underwater tunnel and two human-made islands, is also the longest sea-crossing in the world. Private use of the bridge is limited to just 10,000 permit holders, with the majority of passengers traveling across on the bridge’s 24-hour public shuttle system.

The bridge is located on the rail line between Shanghai and Nanjing in Jiangsu province. It is in the Yangtze River Delta where the geography is characterised by lowland rice paddies, canals, rivers, and lakes. The bridge runs roughly parallel to the Yangtze River, about 8 to 80 km (5 to 50 mi) south of the river. It passes through the northern edges of population centers (from west to east) beginning in Danyang, Changzhou, Wuxi, Suzhou, and ending in Kunshan. There is a 9-kilometre long (5.6 mi) section over open water across Yangcheng Lake in Suzhou.




Construction was completed in 2010 and the bridge opened in 2011. Employing 10,000 people, the project took four years and cost about $8.5 billion. The bridge currently holds the Guinness World Record for the longest bridge in the world in any category as of June 2011.

The China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company designed and built the bridge. It is a Chinese government-funded company which was originally part of the Foreign Aid Office of the Ministry of Communications of China. This company leads major civil engineering projects in China like highways, railways, bridges, ports, and tunnels.

The Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway (or Jinghu high-speed railway, from its name in Mandarin) is a high-speed railway that connects two major economic zones in the People's Republic of China: the Bohai Economic Rim and the Yangtze River Delta. Construction began on April 18, 2008, with the line opened to the public for commercial service on June 30, 2011. The 1,318-kilometer (819 mi) long high-speed line is the world's longest high-speed line ever constructed in a single phase.




The line is one of the busiest high speed railways in the world, transporting over 210 million passengers in 2019, more than the annual ridership of the entire TGV or Intercity Express network. It is also China's most profitable high speed rail line, reporting a ¥11.9 billion Yuan ($1.86 billion USD) net profit in 2019.




The railway line was the first one designed for a maximum speed of 380 km/h in commercial operations. The non-stop train from Beijing South to Shanghai Hongqiao was expected to take 3 hours and 58 minutes, making it the fastest scheduled train in the world, compared to 9 hours and 49 minutes on the fastest trains running on the parallel conventional railway. However, at first trains were limited to a maximum speed of 300 km/h (186 mph), with the fastest train taking 4 hours and 48 minutes to travel from Beijing South to Shanghai Hongqiao, with one stop at Nanjing South. On September 21, 2017, 350 km/h operation was restored with the introduction of China Standardized EMU. This reduced travel times between Beijing and Shanghai to about 4 hours 18 minutes on the fastest scheduled trains, attaining an average speed of 291.9 km/h (181.4 mph) over a journey of 1,302 km (809 mi) making those services the fastest in the world.




The Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge (HZMB) is a 55-kilometre (34 mi) bridge–tunnel system consisting of a series of three cable-stayed bridges, an undersea tunnel, and four artificial islands. It is both the longest sea crossing and the longest open-sea fixed link in the world. The HZMB spans the Lingding and Jiuzhou channels, connecting Hong Kong, Macau, and Zhuhai—three major cities on the Pearl River Delta in China.




The HZM Bridge was designed to last for 120 years and cost ¥127 billion (US$18.8 billion) to build. The cost of constructing the Main Bridge was estimated at ¥51.1 billion (US$7.56 billion) funded by bank loans and shared among the governments of mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.




Originally set to be opened to traffic in late 2016, the structure was completed on 6 February 2018 and journalists were subsequently taken for a ride over the bridge. On 24 October 2018, the HZMB was opened to the public after its inauguration a day earlier by Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Hopewell Holdings founder and then-managing director Gordon Wu proposed the concept of a bridge-tunnel linking China, Hong Kong and Macau in the 1980s. Wu stated that he got the idea in 1983 from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel. In 1988, Wu pitched the concept to Guangdong and Beijing officials. He envisaged a link farther north than the current design, beginning at Black Point near Tuen Mun, Hong Kong and crossing the Pearl River estuary via Neilingding Island and Qi'ao Island. His proposed bridge would have ended at the Chinese village of Tangjia, and a new road would have continued south through Zhuhai before terminating at Macau. Discussions stalled after the Tiananmen Square protests in mid-1989 "unnerved" Wu and other foreign investors, and caused Hopewell's Hong Kong share prices to plunge.




The route proposed by Wu was promoted by the Zhuhai government under the name Lingdingyang Bridge. In the mid-1990s, Zhuhai built a bridge between the Zhuhai mainland and Qi'ao Island that was intended as the first phase of this route, though the full scheme had not been approved by either the Chinese or Hong Kong governments at the time. China's central government showed support for this project on 30 December 1997. The new Hong Kong government was reluctant, stating that it was still awaiting cross-border traffic study results, and Hong Kong media questioned the environmental impact of the project with regard to air pollution, traffic and marine life.




In December 2001, the Legislative Council of Hong Kong passed a motion urging the Administration to develop the logistics industry including the construction of a bridge connecting Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao. In September 2002, the China/Hong Kong Conference on Co-ordination of Major Infrastructure Projects agreed to a joint study on a transport link between Hong Kong and Pearl River West.