Zhaozhou Bridge / 赵州桥

Shijiazhuang

Hebei Province

The Extraordinary Zhaozhou Bridge in Zhaoxian County, Hebei Province, about an hour from the provincial capital Shijiazhuang, is a stunning reminder of just how sophisticated Chinese engineering techniques were, more than one thousand four hundred years ago. That is the amount of time the Zhaozhou Bridge has stood spanning the Jiaohe River.

The bridge is the work of the engineer Li Chun who had to overcome numerous technical difficulties when designing and building it. First of all, it had to be high enough to avoid damage from frequent flooding, but at the same time it had to be flat enough to allow trade caravans and the imperial army to cross. Li Chun’s answer to this engineering dilemma was a segmental bridge, the world’s first, and Continue reading “The Extraordinary Zhaozhou Bridge”