Buildings & Structures

The Highest Bridges in the World

From China's Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge on down, the world's highest bridges open to traffic, ranked by deck height. That means how far the roadway sits above the ground or water below it, not how tall the towers or pylons are. Heights follow the usual convention of measuring to the original river or valley floor, so a few decks that now cross a dam reservoir have a shorter drop to the water today (noted below). Bridges still under construction aren't included, and neither is the Hegigio Gorge Pipeline Bridge in Papua New Guinea, which carried pipelines rather than traffic and has since been taken down.

Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge, the highest bridge in the world, Guizhou, China

Pictured: the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge in Guizhou, China, #1 with its deck 625 m up.

Rank Bridge Deck height Country Type Main span Opened
1Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge — Guizhou625 mChinaSuspension1,420 m2025
2Duge (Beipanjiang) Bridge — Guizhou/Yunnan border565 mChinaCable-stayed720 m2016
3Sidu River Bridge — Hubei496 mChinaSuspension900 m2009
4Puli Bridge — Yunnan485 mChinaSuspension628 m2015
5Jin'an Jinsha River Bridge — Yunnan (about 335 m above today's reservoir)461 mChinaSuspension1,386 m2020
6Yachi River Bridge — Guizhou434 mChinaCable-stayed800 m2016
7Zangkejiang Bridge — Guizhou (about 333 m above today's reservoir)410 mChinaSuspension1,080 m2025
8Qingshui River Bridge — Guizhou406 mChinaSuspension1,130 m2015
9Baluarte Bridge — Durango/Sinaloa border403 mMexicoCable-stayed520 m2012
10Liuguanghe Bridge (Xiqian Expressway) — Guizhou375 mChinaCable-stayed580 m2017
11Baling River Bridge — Guizhou370 mChinaSuspension1,088 m2009
12Beipanjiang Bridge (Guanxing Highway) — Guizhou366 mChinaSuspension388 m2003
13Tongzihe Bridge (Jinrentong) — Guizhou365 mChinaSuspension965 m2024
14Dimuhe River Bridge — Guizhou (about 340 m above today's reservoir)360 mChinaSuspension538 m2015
15Yangbaoshan Bridge — Guizhou360 mChinaSuspension650 m2022

The Top 10

#1

Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge — 625 m

Opened on September 28, 2025, on the Liuzhi–Anlong Expressway in Guizhou, this steel-truss suspension bridge hangs its deck about 625 meters above the Beipan River. Guinness World Records later certified the height at 626.01 meters. Its 1,420-meter main span is also the longest of any bridge built in mountainous terrain. A crossing that used to take two hours of winding canyon roads now takes about two minutes, and the bridge was designed as a tourist destination too, with sightseeing and adventure-sport attractions built around it.[1]

#2

Duge (Beipanjiang) Bridge — 565 m

This 1,341-meter cable-stayed bridge opened on December 29, 2016, and crosses the Nizhu River gorge right on the border between Guizhou and Yunnan. It held the title of world's highest bridge for almost nine years, until Huajiang opened roughly 100 km away. Before it was built, the drive between Liupanshui in Guizhou and Xuanwei in Yunnan took more than four hours. Afterward it took under two.[2]

#3

Sidu River Bridge — 496 m

When it opened in November 2009 near Yesanguan in Hubei's Badong County, this 1,222-meter suspension bridge became the world's highest, taking the title from the Beipanjiang Bridge on the Guanxing Highway (#12 below). The gorge was so remote that engineers couldn't easily use a helicopter or blimp to carry the first pilot line across. Instead they fired it over in 2006 on a rocket trailing more than 1,000 meters of tether, believed to be the first time a bridge cable was strung this way.[3]

#4

Puli Bridge — 485 m

Opened in August 2015 near Xuanwei in Yunnan's Qujing prefecture, this suspension bridge carries the G56 Hangzhou–Ruili Expressway over a deep gorge on a 628-meter main span. The Duge Bridge (#2) carries the same expressway, so the G56 crosses two of the world's five highest bridges.[4]

#5

Jin'an Jinsha River Bridge — 461 m

This suspension bridge carries the Huaping–Lijiang section of the G4216 Chengdu–Lijiang Expressway over the Jinsha River, the upper Yangtze, and opened on December 31, 2020. When it opened, its 1,386-meter main span was the longest of any mountain suspension bridge in the world. It stands about 1.4 km upstream of the Jin'anqiao Dam, so the reservoir now covers the original riverbed: the deck is 461 meters above the old river level but only about 335 meters above the water when the reservoir is full.[5]

#6

Yachi River Bridge — 434 m

This cable-stayed bridge on the expressway between Guiyang and Qianxi crosses the Yachi River inside the reservoir area of the Dongfeng Hydropower Station. It opened in 2016. Its 800-meter main span was billed as the largest of any cable-stayed bridge built in mountainous terrain, and the video above shows the moment its two halves met over the gorge.[6]

#7

Zangkejiang Bridge — 410 m

Opened to traffic on February 14, 2025, this suspension bridge carries the Nayong–Qinglong Expressway across the Beipan River on a 1,080-meter main span. Guizhou officials called it the first suspension bridge designed and built entirely by Guizhou firms. Before it opened, engineers load-tested the deck by parking 72 heavy trucks on it, about 2,520 tonnes in total. The Guangzhao Dam reservoir now sits below it, so the visible drop to the water is roughly 333 meters.[7]

#8

Qingshui River Bridge — 406 m

This 2,188-meter suspension bridge opened at the end of December 2015 on the Guiyang–Weng'an Expressway, and its 1,130-meter main span is one of the longest anywhere. It cut the road distance between Weng'an County and Guiyang from about 160 km to 38 km. It has also drawn extreme-sports athletes, including Chinese wingsuit pilot Zhang Shupeng, who jumped from the deck.[8]

#9

Baluarte Bridge — 403 m

The highest bridge outside China crosses a ravine in the Sierra Madre Occidental on the border between Durango and Sinaloa, on the highway between Durango and Mazatlán. President Felipe Calderón inaugurated it in January 2012, and Guinness World Records recognized it as the world's highest cable-stayed bridge, a title it held until China's Duge Bridge opened in 2016. The video above comes from VSL, the engineering firm behind its stay cables.[9]

#10

Liuguanghe Bridge (Xiqian Expressway) — 375 m

This cable-stayed bridge opened in January 2017 on the Xifeng–Qianxi Expressway, crossing the Liuguang River gorge between Xiuwen and Qianxi in Guizhou. Its two bottle-shaped towers rise 248 and 236 meters and carry a 580-meter main span. Construction took only about a year and a half, from July 2015 to December 2016.[10]

Bridges Records Architecture

Sources

  1. Xinhua, People's Daily, CGTN and Chinese government (gov.cn) coverage of the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge's September 28, 2025 opening, its 1,420 m span and its tourism complex, plus Guinness World Records' "Highest bridge" entry (626.01 m, certified April 2026).
  2. Coverage of the Duge (Beipanjiang) Bridge's December 2016 opening, including Dezeen, Dlubal's engineering blog and the bridge's Wikipedia entry, for its length, border location, record tenure and travel-time savings.
  3. Hubei provincial government bridge profile, plus Atlas Obscura/Slate and Vice reporting on the rocket-launched pilot line used to build the Sidu River Bridge.
  4. Wikipedia and HighestBridges.com entries for the Puli Bridge (opening date, expressway, span and deck height).
  5. Wikipedia and HighestBridges.com entries for the Jin'an Jinsha River Bridge, including its height above the original river versus the Jin'anqiao Dam reservoir.
  6. Wikipedia and Structurae entries for the Yachi River Bridge, plus news footage of its main-span closure.
  7. Guizhou Provincial Department of Transportation and Xinhua reporting on the Zangkejiang (Zangke River) Bridge's construction, load test and February 14, 2025 opening, plus its Wikipedia entry for span, height and reservoir clearance.
  8. Wikipedia and Baidu Baike entries for the Qingshui River Bridge (opening, span, distance savings), plus news footage of Zhang Shupeng's wingsuit jump.
  9. Guinness World Records and Wikipedia entries for the Baluarte Bridge, plus Washington Post reporting on its January 2012 inauguration.
  10. Wikipedia (English and Chinese) and Baidu Baike entries for the Liuguanghe Bridge on the Xiqian Expressway, for its construction dates, towers and span. Overall ranking cross-checked against Wikipedia's "List of highest bridges" and HighestBridges.com, using deck height above the original ground or river level. Bridges not yet open to traffic in October 2026 are excluded: the Tianmen Bridge (about 560 m) and the Guniuhe Bridge (about 405 m), both on the unfinished Anshun–Panzhou Expressway, and the Chuandian Jinsha River Bridge (about 360 m). So is the dismantled Hegigio Gorge Pipeline Bridge (393 m).