Over the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), China has woven a more integrated expressway network with the main routes of 33 major national-level expressways largely interconnected to enhance connectivity and underpin economic growth.
By the end of 2024, China's highway mileage reached 5.49 million kilometers, up 290,000 kilometers from five years earlier. Expressways stretched for 191,000 kilometers, covering 99 percent of cities with a population of over 200,000.
Rural roads are a vital component of China's vast highway system. By the end of 2024, the overall length of rural roads was 4.64 million kilometers, accounting for nearly 85 percent of the national total.
One of the iconic road projects completed during the 14th Five-Year Plan is the world's tallest bridge, which opened to traffic last month in southwest China's Guizhou Province, slashing travel time across a deep canyon from two hours to just two minutes after three years of construction.
The Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge, soaring 625 meters above the Beipan River in Guizhou's mountainous terrain, is nearly nine times as tall as San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.
With a main span of 1,420 meters, the project has become the world's longest-span steel truss girder suspension bridge in mountainous terrain, according to Guizhou provincial authorities.
Spanning the Huajiang Grand Canyon dubbed "the Earth's crack", the 2,890-meter-long structure is the latest addition to the rapidly expanding infrastructure network of the world's second-largest economy.
To harness the economic benefits of the bridge, villagers living near the bridge upgraded their farmhouses into hotels as local authorities developed the travel sector and hosted international skydive events.
As the transportation network becomes increasingly accessible, the main artery is also growing stronger in China.
The Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link, a 24-kilometer cross-sea passage in south China, has greatly enhanced connectivity in the Greater Bay Area, making travel more convenient between cities.
The mega-project, opened in June 2024, has seen over 42 million vehicles in total traffic as of Monday. The link drastically reduces the time for traveling between the city of Zhongshan and the technology hub of Shenzhen -- situated on opposite sides of the Pearl River Estuary in Guangdong Province -- from two hours to approximately 30 minutes.
The new speed has made cross-city living nothing out of the ordinary -- more than 3.7 million passenger trips on the inter-city buses now let people work in Shenzhen and sleep in Zhongshan or Guangzhou.
China weaves stronger expressway network in 14th Five-Year Plan period
