The bridges and tunnels across the Yangtze River carry rail and road traffic across China's longest and largest river and form a vital part of the country's transportation infrastructure. The river bisects China proper from west to east, and every major north–south bound highway and railway must cross the Yangtze. Large urban centers along the river such as Chongqing, Wuhan, and Nanjing also have urban mass transit rail lines crossing the Yangtze.
Pontoon bridges have been used by militaries for two thousand years on the Yangtze, but until the completion of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge in 1957, there were no permanent bridges along the main stretch of the river known as Chang Jiang (the "Long River"), from Yibin to the river mouth in Shanghai, a distance of . Since then, over 75 bridges and six tunnels have been built over this stretch, the overwhelming majority since 1990. They reflect a broad array of bridge designs and, in many cases, represent significant achievements in modern bridge engineering. Several rank among the world's longest suspension, cable-stayed, arch bridges, truss and box girder bridges as well as some of the highest and tallest bridges.
Upriver from Yibin, bridge spans are more common along the Jinsha and Tongtian sections where the Yangtze is much narrower, although numerous new bridges are being added. The oldest bridge still in use is the Jinlong, a simple suspension bridge over the Jinsha section of the river in Lijiang, Yunnan that was originally built in 1880 and rebuilt in the 1936.
Section names of the Yangtze
Due to changes in the designation of the source of the Yangtze, various sections of the river have been thought of as distinct rivers with different names. The bridges and tunnels of the Yangtze have compound names consisting of the location name and the river section name. Today, the river has four sectional names in : (1) Tuotuo, (2) Tongtian, (3) Jinsha and (4) Chang Jiang. The Tuotuo River, considered the official headstream of the Yangtze, flows from the glaciers of the Gelaindong massif in the Tanggula Mountains of southwestern Qinghai to the confluence with the Dangqu River to form the Tongtian River. The Tongtian continues for to the confluence with the Batang River at Yushu in south central Qinghai. The Jinsha or Gold Sands River continues for along the border of western Sichuan with Qinghai, Tibet, and Yunnan, through northern Yunnan and southern Sichuan to the confluence with the Min River at Yibin in south central Sichuan. Chang Jiang or the "Long River" refers to the final of the Yangtze from Yibin through southeastern Sichuan, Chongqing, western Hubei, northern Hunan, eastern Hubei, northern Jiangxi, Anhui and Jiangsu to the river's mouth in Shanghai. Chang Jiang is generally substituted by "Yangtze" in English usage.
For example, the Nanjing Chang Jiang Bridge is translated as the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge. The Taku Jinsha River Bridge is a bridge along the Jinsha section of the Yangtze.
History
The Yangtze River forms a major geographic barrier dividing northern and southern China. For millennia, travelers crossed the Yangtze by ferry. In the first half of the 20th century, rail passengers from Beijing to Guangzhou and Shanghai had to disembark, respectively, at Hanyang and Pukou, and cross the river by steam ferry before resuming journeys by train.
Bridges in antiquity
Pontoon bridges
The earliest recorded pontoon bridge over the Yangtze was the Jiangguan Pontoon Bridge built in AD 35 by Gongsun Shu, the ruler of Sichuan, in the war with the Han Emperor Liu Xiu. Gongsun Shu built the pontoon across a narrow part of the river between Jingmen and Yichang in (modern Hubei Province) to block the Han Emperor's navy from sailing upriver into Sichuan. The pontoon was burned in battle and Liu Xiu went on to capture Sichuan.
In 570, the Northern Zhou general Chen Teng built a crude suspension bridge across the Xiling Gorge using thick rope and reeds to carry food and provisions for his troops on the south bank. The bridge was cut apart by boats lined with sharp knives sent down river by the Chen general Zhang Shaoda.
During the Tang dynasty, a pontoon bridge was built in Sangouzhen in the Qutang Gorge in 619.
In 974, during the Song Emperor Zhao Kuangyin's conquest of the Southern Tang, a pontoon over 1,000 meters long linked together by bamboo chains was erected in just three days at Caishiji (Ma'anshan, Anhui Province) and enabled the Song Army to advance swiftly across the river and capture Nanjing, the Southern Tang capital.